Dandelions in the Wind
by Stephyblue
Summary: A/U - Quinn Fabray, stone cold and calculating, stands at the threshold of changing the world's technology with her microprocessor Dandelion. Rachel Berry, world renowned actress and music superstar, is Quinn's ticket to making her dream a PR reality. When their paths cross again in this fast paced tech thriller, they change not only each other, but the future of humanity.
1. The Deal: Quinn

**Repost. :)**

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**Chapter 1: The Deal: Quinn**

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_**April 1st, 2025**_

_**Los Angeles, CA**_

_**Dandelion Technologies Incorporated, HQ**_

_Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for your time and attention this evening. It is always a pleasure to be before you…_

No, not right.

_It is always a pleasure to stand before you, here on the cusp of such great change._

Yes, better. I sigh and set down my pen.

The speaker buzzes beside my phone and I hit it with a flippant finger.

"Yes?"

"Ms. Fabray?" It's Mary, my assistant, her clipped voice tinny through the phone.

It irritates me as I measure the speech before me. "I said not to be bothered."

There is a long pause that quirks my eyebrow in annoyance as I direct my gaze to the phone. "Is someone here?" I prompt so that I can focus again.

"Um… I-I have Mr. Waters here."

I lower the form on my desk and turn to my computer, powering it down with a firm click. I swallow before I answer. "Show him in."

From the sprawl of my towering Los Angeles office, I stare out at the shadowed outline of downtown, the buildings cut orange from the sunset. The buildings shimmer, blaze and tantalize me. They are close, close enough to touch if I wanted to fly out the 60 story window beside me. I rack-focus my eyes, standing from my desk as I mentally prepare myself for what's to come, and squint to see the outline of Long Beach. Its oil rigs and manufacturing plants are juxtaposed at odd angles against the California coast. Beautiful and crisp they cut progress and light against the water. They dot like grains of sand on this clear night.

Yes, beautiful.

The double doors open wide, and I cross my arms, not hazarding a glance back as Mary allows Mr. Waters in. I can smell his aftershave, a balm of old-fashioned in my technological world. I wait until he clears his throat, as if I owe him my attention. As if I should be polite, in the shark infested waters we swim in.

The sharks that we are don't allow for such things.

"Quinn?"

I lift my eyebrow and turn to him, erasing my view to focus on his sharp, eagle-like face and impressive suit. "I thought you said this could wait."

"It can't, not anymore."

I bump the side of my desk with my hip as I lean, ironing the lines from my face, and with a guarded smile hovering on my lips I say; "Then tell me the news, did they take the price we offered?"

I wait, watch him catch me with a sly smile, reserved only for something truly awe-inspiring.

"They took the 50% figure in the bid. We got the production capacity of half the goddamn country for a little over 1.35 billion."

I don't move. I can't. At least I wasn't writing my speech for nothing, not that I believed that either. It was going to be mine one way or another. I tap a nail against the leather edging on my ironwood desk. "And the licensing with the government?"

"Working on it. We have to finagle some things... little things." I pierce him with a look from beneath my brows, watching his face contort under the intensity. "They are really minor things, a bit of money in palms here, a campaign contribution there – you know, the usual." His body is humming with excitement, I can feel it.

"Brandy?" I suggest, slinking past him close enough to feel him tremble with both desire and prudence I assume. The high board opens to my careful hands - always careful as I build a world of beauty - and I pull out the glasses and the decanter, sliding them to the granite slab beside me. From this side of the building I can see the hills, and beyond the mountains are flecked in late spring snow.

We share a drink as the landscape is covered in darkness. I turn to him, focusing on his shadow, the outline of his face as the last of the sun rays filter into my office. From this view I know all he can see are my eyes smoldering like golden fire. I use it to my advantage when I can. Sex sells more than brains, even though I have both in spades. "I want our net to even out. I want it higher than Tyco, than Caterpillar's unfaltering bottom line." I pace the room, like a trapped animal, flanking the three-way view of my world.

My universe.

"I don't think we can do that."

I fix my eyes on the city, and I turn to him, leaning back over the 600 feet spreading behind me. Welcoming me in. A breath of glass between me and the end. He has the candor to swallow.

"Mr. Waters." I bite his name off with a smile. "We are the stewards of a new world. A better world. We cannot say that we can fail. We can only succeed, for us – for everyone."

"I believe it and I don't know why my faith is shaken. I'm sorry. I think it's just the speed and magnitude in which everything is happening."

I smile lazily, seduced by the sun as it fades, fanning rainbows through my eyelashes. I can't help the smile I feel rise to my face. "This is just the start. A huge start. We will singlehandedly turn the US economy around, then the United Kingdom."

"And further?"

"All the way across Asia and back again."

"Riding on the back of a microprocessor." He runs a hand through his dark hair and smiles at me. He laughs once, roughly.

I smile, eyeing him as he stares at me. "It isn't just a microprocessor, it is going to be everything." I take the last sip of my brandy, draining the glass and placing it on my desk. I remember myself, and firm up just enough to let him know the moment has passed.

"I'll let you know about the networking." He reads me well and orients on business.

I corral my leather chair and eye him dangerously in the fading light until the solar sensors beam a warm radiance through the office. "Do that, please."

He doesn't leave, so I focus on the page before me briefly before glancing up at his expectant face. As he opens his mouth I palm the speaker beside me.

"Yes, Ms. Fabray?"

"Please show Mr. Waters out."

He doesn't say anything, but his eyes slide over me and then he turns, leaving me to my work, my love.

I feign interest in the papers until the door is closed and then I turn, gazing out over the now black landscape, steel crawling over the world and glossing its rough edges with gilded perfection. It wasn't so long ago that I started this trek. I recall it like it happened to another person, because I could never have shuffled from office to office, begging for money, begging for someone to validate me. I never vied for the world to believe the shaken girl in a business suit was the hero they were looking for; that my sketches and business plans weren't bullshit. That my Dandelion would be the answer to every technological question for the next hundred years.

No, that couldn't have been me.

If it was, that girl is dead. She was weak anyway.

And now everything I have worked for and dreamt of is falling into place. I just have to have the balls to grab it.

"And I will." I say to the empty office. My attention diverts to the fire in my reflection, blonde hair pulled back and blazing eyes – I draw strength from my conviction. Below, I peer down and watch a few people pass by my building and I smile because they have no idea I'm above them, safeguarding their future.

"I promise you." It's a vow to the dark outlines below who rush along their way. "I will be your champion. I will save you."

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A/N: Here ya go, TheWritingFreak. :) Enjoy.


	2. The Benefit: Rachel

**Chapter 2: The Benefit: Rachel**

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_**April 7th, 2025**_

_**Zimbabwe, Africa**_

_**Bringing Hope Benefit**_

"Rachel! Wait!" It's Mark, my bodyguard. His burly form presses close to me, the butt of his gun digging hard into my side. I sigh at him as he smiles down at me. As far ex-military goes, he is amazingly gentle as he blocks me from the edge of the crowd behind the steel barricade.

"You know they can't even see me back here," I deadpan as he hurries me along. His blue eyes twinkle down at me.

"Yeah, well, no chances." He stops me behind a set piece, steel mesh burrs the side of my faux leather jacket. Behind me, beyond the trailer I can hear people screaming, chanting, singing as the commercial break stops the concert.

"_How are you guys doing_!"

The announcer screams, making the crowd roar. The sound feels like it is going to split the earth. It makes me tremble from fatigue and nerves. I close my eyes and just rest, drowning in the thunder of the crowd.

I feel the panic and pressure build and with cosmic accuracy I incline my head and find the brightest stars I can. The Milky Way cuts a swatch of the sky and I stare at the twisting nether, searching for comfort.

Mark returns to my side and I glance over at him as he settles in. "You ready for another set, lady?"

My throat feels dry, so I just nod. From somewhere he produces a bottle of water and I salute him with it. "I don't know how you do it." I whisper in awe before I swig from it greedily.

"It's the little things that matter, they make my paycheck big." He teases with an arched brow. I lead the way toward the stage with a laugh.

"You know you would do this for free." I point at the press of bodies just beyond the caging. Its honestly surreal to me, the vibrations of their excitement literally shake the ground.

"Yeah, protect you and get shot at?" I sigh; he's always bringing up that one rally in Algeria.

I let it slide without inspection. "Travel is good, and so is the food."

"When we get it," He hurries to the water bottle I throw poorly over my shoulder and with a dexterous catch he is standing and smiling at me. "Do you want me to wait here?" The gleam of teeth is erased as I put distance between us.

"I'll see you on the other side. They have me exiting stage right." He glowers at me, clearly not liking it, but heads over there anyway. With a final glance I go it alone the rest of the way, which is just how I like it.

Where once it was music that lit my heart, it's the fire of purpose that now scorches my soul. The gift I have been given, my ability to sing, is now being used for better things. The way I loved it, echoing wide in a concert hall, or across a Broadway stage - it wasn't enough.

Now, philanthropy and activism, _this_ is where my voice belongs. It is my passion. I used to believe it was enough to dress up to schmooze the masses, donate money and forget. Now I realize I must walk my own wavelength across this small speck of a world. In the dirt, as my fathers would say – 'little Rachel in the dirt.' They didn't get the chance to say it until I was a grown woman who should be able to stay clean.

That thought drones in my mind as I weed through the thick brush underfoot, my parka wrapped around me tightly; my high black boots hold back the scratchy brambles. I know my shins are rubbed red above the leather. Even _that_ luxury - a hundred dollar investment of shoes - is afforded to so few. My dark eyes drop to the bare feet before me as I walk up to Sariah.

She is so young, barely eighteen, but in her face I see such wisdom. Or is it pain? There is such a fine line between them on this brittle thread we weave between the bristles. I've known her for two years now. She is a victim of progress, the battle between life and death, the 'have and have-nots'. That is how I see it in the cold expanse of this war-torn world.

"Ms. Rachel. You're next?" She has a tone that both hurts me with its submission and compliments me with its honor. On her chest the bright gleam of a button announces itself and I touch it with a smile between friends. 'Benefit Volunteer'.

"Yes, I believe it's that time." It's been a whirlwind of interviews, sound bites, and too many cameras, too many people. The audience I can enjoy, but this - I glance over as a portable video crew screams up into my vicinity and fans me in white, burning light. I look over at Sariah, as she smiles mildly.

I want to crawl into my trailer and die. How many hours have we been going now? 30? What I wouldn't give for some Godiva chocolate, a book, a bath. No, I block out the pounding music that racks my tired brain. I would give _anything_ for a warm bed and a down comforter.

I brush my hair off my forehead and catch Sariah's eyes.

She is why I do this, why I come here year after year. It is because of her rape and the abuse at the hands of others because no one had enough money to help. Her lack of the pleasures I fantasize about like a bed and comfort.

It galvanizes my resolve. It keeps me putting my feet one in front of the other.

Regardless of the countries I sing in, the message behind the words in the places I can't pronounce – I always come back here, always to her. I'm a tool, and that is all. If my words, my voice, and my beliefs get even just one person to open their eyes, then the world is better for it.

Sariah is better for it, my little sister in a big cold world that I don't understand.

The form of a person swings down from the edge of the stage, startling us both. "Ms. Berry, you're up in two."

I shudder as the loud voice of our benefit's host hammers across the open plains.

"_Welcome back to Bringing Hope, as you can see we have celebrity operators standing by, ready to take your donations."_

From my place, behind the steel girders of the sounds stage, I see the big screen flash images of people answering phones. My throat goes a little dry as the screen changes to the brightly lit audience, scaling back so far I can't make out more than silhouettes. I wonder how many rows it is... one thousand, two thousand? My head spins a little as adrenaline bursts through my veins.

Sariah turns to me and hugs me tightly. "Go make another good one for us." I understand what she is saying and I smile into the moment, silently promising her I will. Her dark outline pushes me toward the stage, and as I climb the stairs she takes my coat. I smile as I'm looking back, her arms fixed around it gently. I really hope this time she will let me give it to her.

I hum lightly, keeping my voice warm as my first big breath from the side of the stage is filled with dirt and cold. _No more of that_, I tell myself and then I wonder how I'm going to hit a high F flat if I can't wallop in any air. I shake my head, no psych-outs allowed.

"_We have a special treat tonight! To all of you watching in America, you will remember her from our last year tribute to the victims of the Black Hills Slide, and Hurricane Emma. Back fresh from her international musical tour, the sensational, beautiful and effervescent, Rachel Berry!"_

_Boom_

The wall of sound from the crowd hits the stage and makes the hair on my body stand on end. I can't see as the light blinds me from the scaffolding above. I just walk; smiling, waving - automatic motions. It's second nature. The band behind me powers my newest single through speakers three times my height as I grab my mic.

_Just do it_, I tell myself as I ramp up and open my soul.

Even here, in a place so far away from home, I leave a piece of my heart. The dry land opening up and swallowing whole the sound I make as I sing. It's amazing, Technicolor in my heart, alive in the moment.

The only thing I can hear is the sound of my voice. The blinding white light coaxes and dares me to forget where I am. And I do in a swirl of memories; a dusty high school stage and a small group of friends, the only thing I can see. When the F flat comes I breathe in and let it fly, holding breathlessly to it.

I'm blessed. Blessed for the life I have and the ability to live it. And I owe it to others, the nameless and faceless to be the best I can be. There are many who don't have the ability to walk through foreign lands, see other people's views.

And they don't understand; they can't understand.

I finish the song as the fireworks off stage explode and my platform is plunged into darkness. The crowd pulsates with energy as I raise my head. I look out across the sea of bodies, five hundred thousand strong across the desert. I can't help the promise that bubbles to my throat; that chokes me because I can't say it.

I will teach the world about their suffering. It is my duty to show them what I see.

To be their champion.

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Gleefaberry - I'm filling plot holes and just making sure it's cleaned up a little better. :) That is the only real rewrite I'm going to do on this cause it's pretty up-to-date with my style.


	3. Dandelion: Quinn

**Chapter 3: Dandelion: Quinn**

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_**April 21st, 2025**_

_**Chatsworth, CA**_

_**Dandelion Technologies Incorporated, Bio-Mechanical Research Facility**_

I pull off the 118 highway and head north. The heavily zoned industrial complexes spire around me, the odd shapes and happy geo-forms glimmer in the midday sun. I tap the steering wheel absently as I watch them whiz by. One more week, I remind myself. One more blessed week of quiet and then all hell will break loose.

I smile as I glance in my rear-view and turn. I can't wait for it.

Before me, the complex _Dandelion_ purchased rises up behind fencing topped with barbed wire. It's a compound really, a prison that holds information captive. For a moment I feel like a jail breaker, knowing I get to announce our achievements to the world in seven short days.

I fix my gaze on the guard gate before me. I let my mind wander as I imagine the press announcement, the gala dinner, the board meeting. I can almost see myself standing at the podium, speaking – stirring the crowd with 'oohs' and 'ahhs' of excitement, doubt and thrill. In the very quiet and self-absorbed part of my mind, I can hear people likening me to Albert Einstein, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. And frighteningly I can feel the throb of knowledge that _Dandelion_ will become just like that, a cataclysmic leap forward in the wealth and well-being of the world.

I almost don't notice the guard beside me until he goes to tap on the window of my car. I freeze him with a look as I roll down the window. "I'll need your identification or I'm going to have to ask you to vacate the premises immediately."

"Is it standard to be this aggressive?" I ask in challenge, irritated that my thoughts of world domination have been interrupted by a mere security guard. I take it as a humbling wake-up call as I fish my credentials out before looping it around my neck and correcting the layers of my hair.

"Ma'am, the badge, please - before I have you arrested for trespassing."

If I wasn't so agitated over his disregard, I'd like him. The cold set of his eyes shows his lack of humor. I flash him my authority on the lanyard around my neck and watch as he swallows his tongue in shock. That cool gaze going wide and nervous. "Ms. Fabray, I'm sorry. I-I didn't realize it was you."

I stare at his badge; memorize his name as he withers under the intensity of my look. "Tom, is it?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I just have one question." I lean on the arm rest and pin him mirthlessly, "do you get many people out here bothering you, or is this dictatorial behavior a part of your persona to make up for your inadequacies?"

"My apologies, ma'am. The best defense is usually a good offense. And to be honest, no matter how someone looks, they could be a whacko." He hooks his thumbs in his guard belt, making the trappings on it jingle. He puffs a little and despite my normally frozen exterior I inwardly admire him. It take balls to tell your bosses' bosses' bosses' boss to stuff it. It also isn't every day that I get a nice big helping of humility and I find that apparently no one does it better than a minimum wage security guard.

"Okay." I smooth a soft smile. "Thank you for your time, Tom." And I turn back to the road as the gate is raised.

It doesn't take long to get to the labs; only 30% of the main building and out buildings are used for staff. The rest is a technological jumble of reactors, power supplies and raw material processing. I'm more of a numbers girl than a scientist, but I do read and try to understand it; hence my self-imposed pilgrimage to this 'secret' lab. I put the car in park with a smirk. Secret my ass.

It might not be labeled, but for years the press has been talking about it. They postulate about what goes on in this unincorporated area of Los Angeles County and the research companies that are based here. As a privately traded company we have our assets listed on our yearly 10K financial statements and its public knowledge we own this facility. I pull my suit jacket from the backseat hanger, remitting my thoughts, the address certainly isn't available in the Yellow Pages despite public knowledge.

I stroll up to the double doors and run my hand over the Dandelion company symbol, an atomic particle in place of the flower's head, with trailing seeds blowing away. It was my design – from so many years ago. My baby. It makes me feel maternal every time I see it. That feeling catches me now as I stare at the frosting on the glass. Has it really only been ten years?

I swipe my badge and walk into the air conditioned interior, my disbelief stamped down by the sheer magnitude of satisfaction I feel as the atrium opens up. The architecture is a smaller version of the headquarters, but it has no less impact as it catches me mid step. I'm entranced by it and smile smugly for no reason other than pride.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Fabray. It's good to see you again."

The front desk concierge greets me politely and I roll through the name bank in my head.

"Thank you Susan, is Alec available?"

"Yes." She picks up her phone. "Mary called ahead for you and I let him know, but let me get him up here." She focuses on the task, and I can see her hands shake as she holds the receiver. I can't help but wonder if I do that to everyone.

Then all at once voices sound from one of the blind corners. "_Damn it_! It will _not_ do, it just will _not_ do." It is followed by a hacking cough.

I know the thick German accent well and incline an eyebrow at the primly dressed woman beside me. She racks her phone. "I suppose he isn't at his desk," She remarks as Alec sweeps around the corner, his grizzled face and bushy eyebrows wagging at me as he catches my jovial expression.

"Hmm…" He exaggerates a grin, "just the vixen I was looking for, come with me. I have something to show you." And then suddenly he is angry again at the poor young lab tech beside him. "And for the love of all that is holy you will take that and run it again. I shouldn't have to do everything myself, god damn it!"

Down the maze of hallways we go in silence. It feels good to be with him. Alec is to me the father I never really had, and his presence is a balm on my tired psyche. I can literally feel my shoulders unknot as I listen to the swish of his lab coat in the air between us. He coughs again, lightly, just enough to bring my attention back.

"Did you catch a cold in your sterile office?" I tease softly as we keep on towards our destination.

"Hush." His voice is no more than a grumble.

"You know, you should go easier on these kids." I start the conversation, hoping to discover that his anger has nothing to do with the microprocessor.

He is eye to eye with me in my pumps, but the look he gives me is dangerously bordering on parental. It is enough to make me feel like I am five years old again.

"Quinn, you wouldn't believe it if I told you. It's deserving, believe me." He checks his watch and then glances over at me, softer this time. "You know I would never judge unless warranted."

The mildly implying comment makes it hard for me to meet his eyes. It spirals me back to our last conversation, about marriage, about family. About how a smart woman like myself should have both by now. I sigh under the weight of inherent obligation, "I know."

Whatever he wanted to say stalls as he regards me until I meet his eyes. "You look tired, Quinn."

I dismiss it so I don't have to admit it's true. "I have projections I'm still bringing together, and I'm still struggling on my speech. I'm pretty sure I have written it twenty times, but it feels so…"

"Stuffy?"

"Disingenuous," I laugh out loud at the comment, "Yeah, stuffy too."

We enter his office and he shuts the door lightly before shuffling over to me. He looks nearly a hundred as he fixes me with a pointed gaze. "Your problem is that you're writing it. You should speak from your heart, you know, that thing you should have given to a good man by now."

I can't help but roll my eyes as I drop into one of the chairs scattered beside the lab tables. "No, not this, not today. Next week you can harangue me about it, but not 'til then."

"Promises, promises..." He pats my arm absently, very doctor-like in its comfort, and then regards the room absently. I stare blankly at it too, measuring the long steel tables and computer screens that flicker with images I don't understand. I poke at a diagram of the Dandelion processor, and my eyes travel the recognizable pattern.

"So, four hundred and eighty thousand atomic processors, huh?" I lift my eyes from the drafting as he regards me thoughtfully.

"We actually figured the half million figure into the arc design, so we're there."

"What is the power on that?"

He pauses, thinking.

"It's enough processing power to run all governmental agencies and their systems on one single chip and do the equivalent of their daily tasks in about a second." I appreciate the fact he is trying hard to leave the technical jargon out of it. "So, I suppose you would like to see the prototype in action?"

His words make my heart race. "Yes." I stand from my seat so quickly I nearly knock it over. I'm glad it's just the two of us. It would be embarrassing if it wasn't.

We circle around to the back corner of the room, where a static free clear case holds Dandelion. The small processor winks at me, prongs and all delicate and humble. I stare at it, marveling at it hidden mysteries. I'm so close I belatedly realize I'm in Alec's way only when he pats my side to make space.

"Sorry. So what are we going to do?"

Alec grins. "You are going to go to that computer over there and pull up a document. Then I want you to type a password out."

"Password, huh?" I smile a little. "How hard do you want this password?" I can feel the excitement in the tips of my fingers as they flex and ache to touch the keyboard. I circle around to one of the consoles and open it up.

Alec is plugging in the chip when he answers, "make it at least four pages long with letters numbers and symbols. We are going to crack it." He seats the processor with just enough time to get his hanky to his face as he coughs again.

"Good thing you didn't take two more seconds."

I begin typing, blindly. "So, for perspective," I smile at his dower expression as I put in a few symbols, "how long would it take to crack this with a normal computer processor?"

"Weeks." Alec states very carefully, his eyes catching mine with a grin as I measure him.

"Weeks, really?"

"Well maybe, say... one week, running 24 hours a day, every day."

I type faster. Once I have written out my insanity of random numbers and letters, I stop. "So, now what?"

"Now I want you to type it in the password test field."

I pause. "Please tell me I can copy and paste this thing." I scan the mishmash of random key strokes.

He chides me gently, "Now, now. This is _your_ password; it's shameful that you don't remember all the pages of it by heart." I glare at him over the top of the monitor and to his credit he returns the look. "Yes, you may copy and paste it."

I do so with succinct clippings.

And I hold my breath as Alec powers up _Dandelion_. I'm waiting for some type of explosion. At least that is what I imagine as the computer's fans kick up and roar like a jet engine. I white knuckle the table before me as he boots his cracking program. It only takes a command line, one small short request of the system and my heart is racing so loud it drowns out the sound of the fans.

Somehow Alec is still louder than that, "This is going to be our demonstration. So they can see the power and the fundamental application of the technology."

The screen flashes and I swear I smell smoke, "What is it doing?"

"Cracking your password at one billion keystrokes a second."

I don't even attempt to understand how it happens. I don't want to feel stupid when I ask. What began as such a casual thing, my miring in business courses and technology studies at community college in Lima, grew into this. My eyes rest on the screen as more and more lines of letters and numbers stack together. And then, five minutes after inception, the password appears; broken wide open for anyone to see.

I just stare at it and imagine the power it would have as a transmitter in medical equipment, social media, satellites. That is the goal of Dandelion after all, to improve the world. "It did it." I whisper in wonderment.

"You doubted me?" Alec turns with an air of almost irritation.

I can feel my jaw drop, the ideas ramming into my mind so fast I can't even believe it. "No, just – we, how fast can it move information?"

"I have seen it transmit the Library of Congress instantly between Los Angeles and Dubai."

I chew my lip. While I think the password cracking is amazing and honestly, more than I can understand at some points, it stops me cold. The idea that Dandelion can do that, something that screams militarism, makes me feel dirty. "You should do that instead, as the display at the unveiling."

Alec regards me from beneath angry brows, "What? Not show them the passwords?"

I straighten up slowly and approach the computer. The text line is still blinking, still showing the encryption I created and I close it down. "Yes." It makes me nervous. "Yes, just do the web platform. Show the people a technology they know." I pause at the expression before me.

"I know the government is going to make connections in the application of Dandelion, but we don't have to connect the dots _for_ them. We don't have to tell them, 'we can crack anything,' you know?"

He smiles a little. "True. Let's not make it easier for them." I think I see pride in his face for a moment until he turns away. "Are you still adamant that you will not sell it to the government?"

"Yes. I don't need to see this wonderful thing on the back of a missile to know it has worth."

Alec coughs lightly, "They could take it..."

It gets my blood pumping as I realize the validity of his words, "They can try." I state with conviction.

He smiles. "And that is why _Dandelion_ is yours, why I trust you with it." His hands cover mine and I smile into his sudden iron grip. "You will do good things Quinn, very good things."

I feel the spiral toward emotions again, and I fix him with a look. "You should sleep more, you don't look well." And he doesn't, from this close now I can see it. I'm suddenly protective of him. "I'm going to put a vacation in for you."

"No, no, no," He waves me off and then pats my shoulder lightly as if to say he appreciates the gesture. "Soon, but first; we have business to attend to."


	4. Gala Benefit: Rachel

**Chapter 4: Gala Benefit: Rachel**

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_**May 13th, 2025**_

_**Madison Ave, New York**_

_**'The Future is Now' Gala Dinner**_

I can't stop fidgeting. _Stop, damn it_.

I physically force my hands into my lap, smoothing them against my sequenced gown with such firmness it hurts my thighs. It's just a dinner, it shouldn't matter. It does matter though, hence the nervous tumble of my hands over anything I can get them on.

From the interior of my town car, I watch the world warp past. It always feels so alien back in the city, or any city really. It's funny how I spent my youth trying so hard to get to New York and now I spend less time here than in other places. Why I own an expensive condo I hardly sleep in is beyond me. It's stupid really; I should just sell it for all the good it is worth.

The bright lights of downtown cut through the dark interior and flash odd shapes over me. So strange and mesmerizing, I think as we stop at a light and I trace the outlines on the empty seat beside me. I miss Sariah and I worry. Worry about her well being when Mark and I and a security detail aren't around. I dig my nail into the stitching of the seat cushion; it will be six long months until I see her again.

I sigh.

"Ms. Berry, can I get you anything?"

I glance up at the driver as he catches my eyes in the rear-view, I smile to ward off the concern I see there. "No, John, don't worry. It's just nerves."

"Well, we're almost there. I got a message that Mark is waiting for you at the curb."

_Great._

"Okay, thank you." I fish for my phone in my clasp and pull it free of the tiny silken bag. For God's sake, Mark won't take a night off to save my sanity. I punch his number and listen to the ring trill on the line. He doesn't pick up and I scowl at the back of the seats in front of me. The last thing I need is his brooding parental presence beside me while I talk to her.

The thoughts stop me cold as an image flashes in my mind of a tall blonde with a wispy bob.

It's enough to make the air in my chest hiccup and I ease it out slowly. As much as I would like to pretend that being back in the city, coupled with a full evening dress dinner has my nerves rattling, it isn't any of that at all. It's her – all five and a half feet of her in my presence.

It stirs a marriage of both twisted and painful feelings for me. I flash back to the newspaper article I read last month, her image plastered there with a headline reading: _The Future is Now_. That same arrogant smug smile that haunted my high school days might as well have been mocking me from the page.

And she had the nerve to loop in my benefit; my chariot of good, as a byline on her steeled success.

"A donation of one hundred thousand dollars to the Bringing Hope Charity Benefit, ha."

"What was that?" John perforates my thoughts from the front seat.

I shake my head, "Nothing."

It was just rude. Rude and deliberate and - my lips curl in a sneer - just so perfectly Quinn. Making herself look good on the manipulation of circumstances. The ink blot image of the newspaper article might have well have been laughing at me.

My hands make fists. And the goddamn invitation to the dinner tonight. It is enough to make my blood boil as I think about it. _Rachel, I supported you, now it's your turn. Dinner's on me._

The nerve!

As if her words and money should be enough to summon me from the home I'm hardly in to see a face that I don't want to.

It might have been different if we had been friends. If in the past we had shared more than a perfect understanding of where we each stood. But no, that was all we had; a very deliberately painful discussion and a clear cut finality of how things would be. So why on _earth_ she had summoned me here, into the heart of _my_ city for _her_ benefit was beyond me.

The car slows under me and I peek out the window just as the paparazzi begin flashing the vehicle. I gather my purse as I see Mark stride up and open the door to the cold New York spring. I step out into the night, setting my posture straight under a litany of calls for my attention. Flashing, more screams and yelps for attention. I casually smile and wave, stopping momentarily for a few choice poses. I actually enjoy it for a moment, until I remember whose dinner this is, and I'll be damned if she gets more press because of me. I continue walking as the car pulls away.

The golden hue of lights among Madison Square is breathtaking as I lift my eyes to the brick front of The Prince George Hotel. It's timeless elegance shows in its stout-faced exterior and canopy entrance. I sweep under it, and Mark has the door open before I have time to be grateful that Quinn chose such a classy location for her gathering.

We mill through the interior, followed by a few photographers who pause just before the carpeting as if some invisible barrier is stopping them. It's a code we have. I'll let them take my picture all they want if they occasionally let me be. It probably doesn't hurt that the hotel security is on them a moment later, ushering them outside.

"Hell of a place," Mark notes as he scans the room around us.

"Yeah, well, I'm not surprised," I glance around and find a small placard noting Quinn's event is being held in the ballroom. "It's kind of her style... opulent, perfect-"

"Bitchy," he whispers.

"Yes, that – a hundred times over that."

"Nice."

We walk through the main lounge and it's nice to not get a second look from the people we pass. To them, I'm just another New Yorker, not Rachel Berry the singer. Besides, I measure a diamond necklace bigger than mine around a cat's neck. I'm pretty sure these people have more money than God. What the hell do I matter? It makes me chuckle.

As we pass the security point, Mark sets it off. He always does, with the shrapnel in his body and the pistol at his side. "Sir, I'll need some identification for the firearm."

Mark fishes for it, hands it over.

"And the other concealed items?" The voice is dubious from the security guard.

I intercede then, as I always do. I can save him on occasion. "It's just war memorabilia. I'm Rachel and this is Mark my bodyguard." I shake the security guard's hand. "I assume you are fine with his carry permit, how about we speed this up just a little so we aren't late to the party."

With veiled glances to one another, they wave us through.

Mark leans close to me. "I bet bitchiness doesn't look as good on her as it does you."

His words make me laugh, but it dies in my throat as we glide into the entryway of the ballroom, tables, linens crystal glinting magically under the lights. I become very aware of the tuxedos and evening gowns around me and the Valentino I'm wearing still makes me feel displaced.

Inadequate, despite my attire. A wolf in sheep's clothing.

Mark hands the invitation to a steward and he glimmers a smile at me.

"I'm a huge fan." He says under his breath and I smile politely. "I'll lead you to your seat." We enter, bathed in cream light. I try to take it all in, the scripted carving and intricate woodwork along the walls. Tile mosaics in the ceiling and scrolling fleur delis that leave me breathless with their beauty. Its classic perfection and charm is interwoven with color.

And all around me I feel the tremble of expectancy. Words breathed in a cacophony of tones and hushes that remind me of being at home on stage, excitement building in my stomach. I place a hand there to steady myself, fingers of curiosity getting the better of me. I don't want to do it, but I glance around for Quinn.

"Rachel Berry?"

I turn to the voice and am confused at my disappointment when I see it isn't her. Instead I'm greeted with Olivia Torrington's sly smile. How she gets the time to attend every single event in New York is beyond me.

"Oh, hello." I manage, as my entourage stops with me on our way to our seats.

As she is a dirty socialite turned gossip hound, I'm instantly on guard. Her luxurious auburn hair is flipped, falling in cascades perfectly around her shoulder.

"I am so happy to see you again," her tone shows she isn't. "How goes the traipsing around in Africa? Or is it South America..? I just can't keep track."

_It's because you're stupid_.

"I try to keep busy," I note, extending my hand in a hopefully believable warm greeting. We shake slightly, like dead, cold fish and then part. "It was the region of south Africa actually."

"Oh, hmm," she does a once over on me, judging my dress, my earrings, my hair all in one calculated circuit. I can't help but suddenly wonder if I'm in the best or worst dressed category. I suppose I'll find out soon enough. "I hear you and Ms. Fabray have a long history?"

It's more a statement than a question. "We know each other, yes."

"Care to share?"

"Not really." I smile to take the sudden bite out of my words. "Not much to tell." I add.

To her credit she looks a little surprised. "Well, I'm sure there is. There is always a story with that woman."

The tone makes my guts twinge just a little. I don't know why the defensiveness rises up in me. It shouldn't, certainly not when it comes to Quinn, but it happens anyway. I blame it on my protective personality for anyone who can't defend themselves. Quinn can, of course, but she isn't here to do so. "And what exactly are you implying?"

Mark takes my arm gently, "We should find our seats; don't you agree, Rachel?"

"Yes." I swallow regaining my temper. "Nice to see you again Olivia, say hello to your father for me when you see him,"

Mark laughs as we depart. "You always have to stomp on that button of hers, don't you?"

I give him an appraising glance. "It's only polite, I don't see him anymore since he got indicted and sent to prison for embezzlement."

It takes another twenty minutes before we are able to get to within an arm's reach of our seats. Once Olivia broke the proverbial dam, it apparently became let's-talk-to-Rachel-about-nothing-important time.

Which is just like every other conversation I have here, and it's _why_ I prefer the travel and work. To go from things of substance, like conversations about clean water and food, housing and refugees – to fashion, animal breeds, the latest technology, it offends me. It's offensive to everything I am. I'm actually grateful for Mark's presence in those moments because what little he _does_ say is barbed with such irritation I'm shocked that he doesn't leave people bleeding.

"Did I ever tell you I love you?" I tease as we finally, blissfully even, reach our seats.

"Not enough."

"I love you."

His brow wags, "I know."

And I do; as much as I can, anyway. Not enough for his liking, I think sometimes. I pay him far too little for him to stay out of anything other than love. As he pulls out my chair and tucks it back in against the table, I know he thinks someday I'll come around. That maybe our relationship will be like that old Kevin Costner/Whitney Houston movie. I feel badly knowing it won't, especially now as he leans across the table and shakes hands with the mayor. Dashing, handsome – and wasting it on me.

"Ms. Berry," Mayor Lugozzi and his wife crowd me and I greet them warmly from my seat. "It's so good to have you home. We watched the benefit, Donna didn't even make me."

I can't help but laugh as his wife gestures that she did from behind him. "I'm sorry, but I know you, and between the Yankees and the benefit I have a feeling you were suckered or threatened into it."

He laughs, "Okay well, we watched you and my daughter is _still_ begging me for an autograph. Maybe I can charm one out of your agent?"

I scoff in mock offense, "You wound me. As if you have to talk to my agent to get one. Tell Chelsea I'm in town for a while and we can schedule a visit properly."

"Wonderful." He claps his hands in an abrupt snap that turns a few heads. "I can't wait. Mark, damn good to see you again, you know they are wagering that the Yankees-"

As his attention is directed elsewhere, mine hones in on one face that had turned from his applause. It's like a sudden hammer to my guts as those familiarly bright hazel eyes fix on me. I swallow, willing my way past the sudden knot in my throat.

I see the recognition pass through her face, and then a cool cloak of something passes over her gaze. It's a subtle shift; a pulse of her throat as she swallows and a softening of her lip line. I thought I was ready for it, but as she holds my gaze I feel my breath catch in my chest. I feel my brain liquefy at the flood of adrenaline that shoots through me. She looks positively statuesque in her off the shoulder gown. It loops lazily about her upper arms, and gives her a teasingly elegant bedroom look. I wonder if she knows it does.

Those eyes of hers hold mine, so smoky and piercing. Of course she knows she drips appeal. If there was one thing that Quinn knew how to play it was the desire card. And just like that, all my walls rebound into place with the snap of a bowstring. I think I even feel them reverberate inside me.

"Rachel."

She says my name like she practices doing it every day. There is an undercurrent of warble in it, bordering on warmth and excitement.

"Quinn?"

"I'm glad you're here. This will be something you're going to like. I can guarantee it."

I stare at her confident expression and I feel my face winding up into a scowl. I stop it from forming into more than a narrowing of my eyes. "It will be interesting, I'm sure."

She smiles genuinely. "You were amazing last month. I don't know how you have the energy to do it."

The gear shift is so sudden I feel my transmission stall out, and I stare at her blankly until I remember the performance. "Oh, yes." I bite back on my desire to say how nice it was for her to donate. No sense in making it seem like I appreciated it, especially in light of her public announcement.

From my place at the table, I feel her lean down into my proximity, the sculpted, yet soft lines of her face bow near me, her scent falling over to tickle my brain with nostalgia. I thread my hands around the purse in my lap and it rattles in my grip. She is so close that I see the lights reflect the twisting copper starbursts around her pupils. They haunt me with their clarity and openness. I tighten my grip further until I feel the clasp on my purse buckle. Those eyes are so different, yet deceptively the same; as her Armani scent and coy lips carve words against my brittle heart. "You're welcome."

My brain melts and my blood boils. "_I'm_ welcome?"

Her ever focused eyes shift a little as doubt enters them, "For the seating arrangement. I know how you like the mayor," her lips shift into a soft curve, "similar to how you love Barbra Streisand."

It's then that I notice the table filling, the performing legends and political chutzpah sliding in around me makes me feel like the table may capsize from the perfect storm. I can't even blink, let alone thank her. Not that I _would_ thank her, because as a celebrity and I should be here. It is a nice gesture, amazingly sentimental in its intimacy of my childhood dreams. It took a lot to remember the Barbra thing.

"Quinn, I-"

"Oh, so _you're_ this Quinn I hear so much about," It's Mark, brashly loud all of a sudden as he interjects into the softness of our conversation. He stands from beside me, shaking her hand. It feels like a predatory move as he crowds my chair, smiling.

"I am." She glances between us and then clears distance with a deliberate step back. I didn't realize how close she was until her warmth vanishes. "Are you Rachel's, um-"

"Plus one," he chirps. Which he is, but not in the connotation he means it. I glance up at Quinn as she smiles tightly, as fake as any smile I have seen on her face.

"Wonderful, well," she nods at both of us, "good- then I will leave you to it."

I want to speak out and clear the air as I feel it ice over, but the lights dim ever so slightly, and she is walking away. I follow her with my eyes, the swish of her dress below a hazardously beautiful open-backed gown. It winds me even as I still feel the swish of air in her wake. And Armani – so elegant and startlingly casual against a backdrop like this.

I lose her in the dart of bodies as they hurry to their seats and it breaks my trance.

"Ladies and gentlemen," A speaker begins, and I turn fully in my chair along with everyone else and the room echoes with the sound of the move. I look toward the stage before me, startled it's there, and a spotlight basks him behind a podium.

"Thank you for your attendance and attention this evening. We are so happy to be here with you. My name is Mr. Waters, and I have the absolute pleasure to be the first to introduce you to the future." He smiles lazily as if he has done this a million times; harkened the future. "Tonight, for a mere thousand dollars a plate, you have a front row opportunity to witness the latest revolution in technology beginning with medical care. It will change the way we communicate, treat and diagnose illness around the world."

I hear a slight hum, like feedback, and then glance up as the projector above me warms. I'm curious, puzzled and somewhat surprised. I didn't know it was medical technology. I didn't know that Quinn was working on something like this. I _never_ would have thought.

"_Dandelion_ promises to be the first step in a techno-medical advancement that will allow processing information at the equivalent to the speed of light. And due to the phenomenal support from viewers like you," he pauses for the laughter from the well known public service announcement, "we have the ability to bring this dream to life."

As sudden darkness overtakes the room, I stare deeply into the place Mr. Waters was standing. A pinpoint of light develops and then the screen behind him blossoms into an image, a field. Dandelions in the wind bounce lazily. As it focuses on one, the strongest stemmed tallest flower, it becomes an atomic particle, and eventually the company logo.

I'm frozen, transfixed by the images as the narrator begins. Images of fields and sunshine give way to darkness and despair, diseases that run rampant and claim lives – a world without Dandelion. A dark foreboding place, similar to many I have been in. Mass graves, genocide, disfigurement so stark and horrifying I don't know why they are showing it before dinner. Probably at the risk of guests losing it, I suppose.

Oddly, I feel Mark tighten his hand on my arm, his eyes reflecting the grizzly images on screen. I pat his hand. I know the pain he feels all too well.

And then everything changes, as Quinn's voice resonates through the ballroom. That chopped and breathy tone grabs my attention as if she is right beside me. She tells us about the Dandelion microprocessor; how badly it's needed, and in that she couldn't be more right. She explains that with one Dandelion chip in a hospital and one with a patient somewhere else, it can monitor that person's well being in the thickest parts of the Congo; from a hundred miles away; from the other side of the world even - we can monitor and prevent the loss of life.

It gives me a physiological reaction. The idea that senseless death, due to lack of communication from the outside world, can be stopped. That the elderly who die alone and forgotten in their homes -with Quinn's technology - will be saved.

"With our technology, we can program a two way communication system so that no matter where you are, you are never alone. Dandelion will even allow the owner to call for emergency medical aid that can triangulate on their location anywhere in the world to within one foot of their location." And then it hits home.

That Sariah, no matter where she is, could be safe. That if anyone so much as gets near her she can signal the cavalry to protect her. In Quinn's world she will never again be at the mercy of marauders, bleeding and broken under a midday sun. Chills rack through me and a lump forms in my throat.

It gives me hope, even as tears rake my cheeks.


	5. The Unveiling: Quinn

**Chapter 5: The Unveiling: Quinn**

* * *

_**May 13th, 2025**_

_**The Prince George Hotel, New York**_

_**'The Future is Now' Gala Dinner**_

Listening to my own voice is off-putting. It isn't that I dislike it necessarily, it just feels odd. I've spent a long time listening to other people. Alec telling me I should get married, my mother telling me so many years ago what a disappointment I was, my friends telling me now that I'm too cold, too unavailable. It's all true, but worth it.

I know it. It has to be.

I scan the audience with a long gaze, a sea of faces that flash in the light from the projector.

I focus my gaze on Rachel as she shares a touch of hands with her boyfriend. She wasn't wearing a ring, so I feel safe with my assessment. It makes my heart seize up as I watch the slide of her hand across his, I don't know why. It isn't like we are friends, but having a third wheel certainly makes it difficult to form that relationship.

I quietly analyze my thoughts, is that what I wanted?

No. I need her deep pockets and wide reach in the philanthropic world. I need her blessing so she will take Dandelion on tour. I need strategic, cunning placement and perforation of emerging markets. I need opportunity in the form of the dizzying irritating starlet.

As the lights dial up around the room, my eyes are focused only on her face. The tendrils of hair, curled to perfection, frame that soft jaw line. Almond shaped eyes that smile even when she isn't, even as they water and mark the perfection of her cheeks. I can't tear my eyes from it, her image emblazoned against the backdrop of the world's most elegant and powerful. I blow out a breath of air, abandoning my self-deluding lies along with it.

I miss her. I miss her vivaciousness even when we were edged in opposition.

And I certainly missed her smile.

The room is silent. I expected applause, but the whine in my ears deafens me at the gaping maw of utter soundlessness. I glance across the stage to where Waters is rising and I twist my hands around my speech cards trying to find anything to focus my nerves on. Waters crowds the mic his voice strong, but with a tremble. "And, now, I would like to hand off the presentation to my friend and colleague, Dandelion's President and founder, Quinn Fabray."

As I stand, the room rises with me. I don't know what to think of it in those infinitesimal moments, as I'm caught staring at people as they stand. For a moment I think they are getting up to leave and then their hands come together. I'm flooded with relief as the applause sounds like waves, echoing and whipping, filling the ballroom with vibrato as the air itself throbs.

It continues even as I hold the podium, its empty top housing my speech cards after I'm able to release them. I wait patiently, silently, trying to keep the inappropriately large smile off my face. It feels good, and as I look around the room and mouth thank you's to no one in particular I pause as Rachel wipes at her cheeks.

In her eyes, for the briefest of moments I see her as she sees me, and I'm flattered by it. I really mean the 'thank you' I say to her, just as for the first time in her life I think she means the smile she gives me.

As the applause dies and seats are reclaimed, I watch with a twinge of satisfaction as Rachel's 'plus one' excuses himself, most likely toward the bathroom, where I hope he drowns.

"Thank you for such a warm greeting." I hear my voice travel and I look down at my cards.

_It is always a pleasure to stand before you, here on the cusp of such great change._ I read through the words and then swallow them. I can hear Alec in my head, chiding me, telling me to speak from the heart. I glance up at the crowd's expectant gaze.

"I had a plan for what I wanted to say tonight." I clear my throat, genuine honesty a difficult burden for me to carry. "It was a plan to placate you with compliments and to reiterate our need, so you would open your billfold and donate." I show them the cards in my hand, as warbled laughter washes over me. I set them down with finality. "However, you know this already. We have all been to a fundraiser before; some political, some social, but all with the same intent. Need."

I pause. "Need is a big word. We saw it here tonight in the positively gut wrenching images from a moment ago. You have seen need tonight, some with your very eyes before. You know the need the world has." That part was for Rachel and she starts at her place. I see the recognition move through her and it warms me.

"What you don't know is how my vision will all eventually play out. So I will tell you that story instead." I think I hear Waters' throat wheeze in air with his adamant, but quiet, disagreement.

"We have solidified manufacturing of the Dandelion chip and it has started already. This is thanks to some political assistance and strategic alliances with India. Later this year, we intend to roll out a wide scale deployment of the Dandelion chip in our DandelionMed device to the United States, Europe and Japan." I recite from my business model by memory. "That will be phase one of our deployment regarding the medical devices. From there, we will continue to all countries in the European Union, and any other Second or Third world countries that are in treaty with us."

I wasn't expecting a question and answer session, but when a hand shoots up from near the front of the ballroom I have to squint and shade my eyes to see the owner. It's the Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa. "Yes, your Excellency?" I feel a twinge of regret that I didn't have him seated at Rachel's table.

"When do you propose that Dandelion will make its way to Africa? We have much need of it there."

I chew the thoughts I have. "I am hoping by mid next year, perhaps the first quarter of the following."

Another hand. "Yes?"

"How many uses will Dandelion have at launch?"

This one is an easy one and I run down the specs in my head.

"Regarding the Med device, it will be complete with two way communication, biometric monitoring, GPS and a satellite link."

"But when you want to add on functionality won't you have to bring them back in?"

I shake my head with a smile. "No, the satellite link will let us update the capabilities remotely."

"Isn't that a huge undertaking?"

I grin. "Not if the satellite has a Dandelion chip of its own in it. Which is another prong of our approach. Dandelion is a chip with enormous potential, not only in medicine, but communication and research."

The laughter settles me as it catches from person to person. It feels good. Exciting. Fresh. Smiles are levied in my direction. The support makes me feel euphoric.

"I have a question." It's a young man in the very back and his voice echoes toward me, high and somewhat shrill. It creates more laughter and turns a few heads. I squint out at him, my name bank coming up empty as I measure his face and the dark in his eyes.

"Yes?"

"How are you going to sleep, knowing what you are doing? Knowing that you are degrading people to further your agenda and line your pockets?"

No one is laughing now and I feel every nerve in my body suddenly alight. "I'm sorry, how do you mean?"

"Your technology does nothing but hurt the world!"

I can see security moving toward him, so I soften my voice to calm his yells. "Sir, please explain to me what you mean."

He produces something in his hand and just as he does I hear his angry words. "And someone has to take a stand so you don't get away with it!"

Cut on a wire, inhuman with its tone, a single word stops my heart as it's yelled from the back of the room.

"_Bomb!"_

My knees turn to jelly and threaten to drop me to the ground. "No!" I scream and the wind-whipped panic in my own voice sends people scattering in every direction. Everything slows down as his face twists and I watch his finger hit the button.

Exposed where I am, high above the crowd, everything slows down as the ballroom doors explode inward. Silhouetted against the burning embers, the bomber doesn't flinch, doesn't waver in his disgust of me. The explosion sounds like a woof, a guttural deep snarl from a demonic dog, as air is displaced and ignited. I can't move, I can't blink; I'm frozen as the Mayor's detail shoves him under the table then turns, burying bullets into the man's chest. It's like a movie, the hail of debris arcing through the air, slicing through table linens and people. I'm screaming, air rushing out my throat in a flail of fright. I watch as skin is drawn in bloody rivulets and fire flashes. It makes the ballroom a warzone. The sound of others screaming as my voice dies cuts into my consciousness and it's then that I can finally duck behind the podium.

I'm panting, I can't breathe. My fingers tingle as everything zeros in and I'm threatened with unconsciousness. Fuck! _Calm down_, I tell myself, but the sheer panic gripping my heart won't let me. From the side of the room I hear a sizzle, like fire. I hesitate a glance over as oozing green gas billows from the edge of the room.

"Gas!" It's not my voice, its someone else's. I'm glad for it. I can't even speak.

My eyes follow the trail as it wafts toward the center of the room. I spy Rachel, ducked beneath her table. Her eyes are wild with fear, big and bright and reflective of my own panic. I gather myself, my throat cracking from dryness and fear. Someone has to do something! _Go_, damn it, _go_! I will my legs to lift me and I grab the mic in shaking hands.

"Everyone, to the right side of the room, the emergency exit! Hurry!"

Feedback squeals as I scramble from the stage, tripping and falling over chairs as they are flung in disregard. It hurts as I slam into them repeatedly. I hear Rachel scream,I don't know how I know it's _her_ scream.

"Mark!"

She is so close, close enough that I'm able to wrangle her fingertips as she reaches out for me. I don't know why, but I focus on it as her hand wraps with mine and our grip is solidified. It's as if the only thing that matters are the little things I can control; a firm grip as we run being the only thing in this moment. The scream of the fire alarm licks at my heels as I burst out of the ballroom, Rachel in tow behind me.

She lets me go, swinging on the doorjamb her eyes searching, mouth curling in a frightened scream, "Mark!"

"Here! Fuck!" It's far away down the hall and I wait for her to run to him and slam the door behind us. The walls are flanked with people, hacking coughing, crying. In the sick yellow blink of emergency lights, they look like sepia-toned war pictures.

"Are you all right?" I ask a few, their frightened heads bobbing up and down. They are all older, certainly older than me, unable to catch their breath from the terror.

I pick up threads of conversation as I make my way down the hall, following the rushing form of Rachel.

"What was that gas?"

"I think I feel faint."

"Mustard gas, oh honey, we're all gonna die."

"Terrorists!"

It haunts me as I catch up to the more able-bodied, the Mayoral detail armed at the service exit. I see Rachel fly headlong into Mark's arms and he wheezes out a groan. "Ouch, Rachel, wait."

"Oh, god! Are you hurt?" She pats at him frantically, until she pulls back a bloody hand, orange in the hued light. "Oh god, you were shot! Mark! No!"

He's holding a firearm, bravely ignoring her blubbering as he fixes his eyes on the security detail opposite the hall. "Yeah, our friends over there got a little trigger happy. It's just a scratch though, I promise."

"God, Quinn." The mayor's wife Donna circles me in her arms. "Honey, I'm so sorry." Though I hardly know her, I feel her grip unhinge a well of agony inside me and I do everything I can to not cry right on the spot. What have those crazy people done? I clear my throat reflexively and let out a large breath. I'll think about it another time.

"Let's just get out of here."

"Yes, what are we waiting for? We have to get to the hospital, now!" Rachel makes a beeline for the door, only to be stopped by Mark as he grabs her arm deftly.

"They could still be out there. There had to be more than just that one guy. Someone was throwing gas canisters and it wasn't a corpse."

"Like that matters, the police are surely here, right?" Rachel looks over at the Mayor. "I mean you always said that New York's finest are on scene in less than five minutes. Well, it's been six now, so let's damn well get going."

It would be funny if everything wasn't so heartbreaking. I watch the Mayor debate his campaign platform's truth against his life. I watch him, wondering what call he will make, keeping myself from thinking about Dandelion.

My Dandelion. The thought rolling in my head nearly brings me to tears.

"Let's go."

"Sir?" One of the security guards says. I watch the vein in his neck throb with the rapid beat of his heart.

It's Mark who steps up. "You heard the man, let's go." And as if he is some sort of Rambo in real life, he presses open the door. Not a single moment of hesitation of fear. He just does it, like he's invincible. Even I, who wished him dead and drowned in a urinal only moments before, love him for it. I see that love in the glitter of Rachel's eyes as she follows him out, blindly, trusting him to make the right decision.

Donna clears her throat beside me, "You go." Louder she turns down the hallway. "Everyone come out this way, we will bring up the rear!"

I'm shell shocked, unable to form words. I just shake and follow. Out into the night air, a few people streak past, running from the front of the building out into the alley we are in. Against the brick wall I see the flash of police lights and red and blue become my favorite colors.

I want to run headlong screaming into them, but I file behind Mark as he checks the roof, the windows. Crossing feet, one over the other as he slowly - painfully - makes his way toward the street. He holds his pistol with a firmness that only a soldier can have. I love soldiers. I love the old world chivalry that some of them have, and the lousy poker skills that most of them hide. His chiseled perfection is hard to compete with. I blink as my eyes go fuzzy. Compete with?

His gun blurs as a light pops on from a window above us and he's at it, fixed, deadly in his accuracy. His thick finger posed at the trigger. "It's just a light," breathless and softer, "just a light." I'm so focused on the tip of his gun I don't even see the figures approach us.

"Get down on the ground!" I'm blinded as focused light cuts into the alley, freezing us where we stand.

"Officers! We have injured!" It's the Mayor, he runs passed to our small lead group.

It's when I see the police, right before the blue spots in my eyes start to swirl and make me sick, that I realize everything that I have lost.


	6. Aftermath: Rachel

**Chapter 6: Aftermath: Rachel**

* * *

_**May 14th, 2025**_

_**NYU Medical Center, New York**_

_**Room 615**_

I contemplate my life as I watch the traffic race by on F.D.R Drive. Beyond the road, the flat water of the East River is a sheet of black crystal to Long Island. It's funny really, how a brush with death makes me so introspective.

It seems like it was only yesterday that I was first starting out, a young off-Broadway singer with dreams of stardom. It was a chance meeting with an agent who changed my life. Who told me my voice was meant for bigger things; platinum records and radio airtime. I believed him. I wish I never had. My life would have been so different and not all the money in the world could ever erase tonight from my mind.

I can't believe my life has come to this; a hospital room with one of my closest friends hurt.

I stare out at a small cluster of buildings that dot the skyline and then the rain comes. It cries for me, for the literal nightmare my life has become, washing down in light sprinkles. I palm the window as the drops hang; tracing my eyes down the lines they cut as they swirl down the plate glass. They create rivers of light, refracting the scene before me and obscuring it from my view.

I focus on my hand, a ghosted outline of heat left imprinted on the glass. I pull it back, my fingers trembling. I can't get the image out of my head of my hand covered in blood. I stare at it, knowing my skin is clean, but it's there red and bright in my memory. I remember how it felt, hot and sticky and horrible.

Terrifying.

"Rachel. Go home." Mark's voice is tired and it summons me from my pensive gaze.

I focus on him, mechanically tucked into a hospital bed. Looping tubes from his IV dangling and shining in the bland lighting as he gestures to me. I can't get over how young he looks. How much of a lost little boy he becomes as he leans back and smiles lightly at me.

I take up my vigil beside his bed, my hand covering his. It gives him enough peace that he closes his eyes. I slide my gaze from the sharpness of his profile to the curve of his lips, so perfect and refined. He deserves a woman who could love him. Really love him, not someone like me.

I find the clock on the wall and measure the early morning hour. When I return to his face, he is looking at me. "As much as I love the attention, you need to go."

"Yeah, like hell that is going to happen." I squeeze his hand, twisting my fingers around his until he catches my gaze.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

It doesn't matter to me. "I'm fine, really, I'm fine. You just need to focus on getting better. That is all that matters right now."

He gives me a snarky grin, "so is it true that Quinn pulled you out of there?"

I shrug under the intensity of his gaze, "I think we mutually kept each other running and that is about it." I remember back, her hands reaching out for me and then the pull of her as she ran. I remit my previous thoughts, "I suppose she did kind of pull me, but mostly because she can run faster apparently."

"She got off lucky, you know."

"I know." As the silence stretches between us I focus on his IV, the white padding on his arm stark against the bronzing of his skin. I fix Mark with a quizzical expression after a moment, my eyes focusing hard on him. "What do you mean?"

"I think they said the gas was just green tinted carbon dioxide." He shrugs lightly and then hisses with a twinge of pain. "Harmless."

I shake my head, as I try and pull the images together in my mind.

"I can't really remember anything; even now it's a little muddled. I just remember the explosion and then Quinn, then you in the hallway." I wrack my brain, struggling with the empty space. "Everything is a jumble of screams and panic."

"Its shock, that's all." Mark reassures, "I promise when you don't want it to, it will all come back. And then you won't be able to shake it."

I glimmer a smile as his words make me feel reassured, "I'll hold you to that."

We fall into amiable silence again, and my thoughts wander. Poor Quinn. Certainly everything she has worked for is gone, destroyed by these zealots. I just can't seem to work out if it's for the better or not. The idea of Dandelion is so enthralling, but like any good entertainer understands, I know you can't get something for nothing.

"Mark?"

"Yeah?"

"You think these guys will do something else? I mean do you think that chip is really that bad?"

He sets his jaw. "I don't know if they will do something again, I mean your friend-"

"She isn't my friend." My fingers go a little numb as my blood drains to my feet.

"Fine, your 'acquaintance'," he corrects, "she would have to go through with it, or keep going through with it to piss them off again, you know?" He hesitates for a moment under my gaze. "I don't know how I feel about the chip."

"It certainly paints a beautiful picture of how things could be. I don't know, I just think there is so much need for it. We, society I mean, needs a swift kick in the butt otherwise we won't have anything left."

"That is what people like you and I fight for Rachel." He takes my hand swiftly and holds it in a gentle grip. "That is what we do, what we fight for."

"Isn't she fighting for the same thing?" I squeeze Mark's hand, patting it softly, "I mean behind all of that pomp and circumstance, isn't she just trying to do good things for people? Heal the sick and prevent people from being hurt?"

He firms his lips into a brief frown and then it's gone. "We don't need to tag people like animals in a scientific study to help the sick or protect the innocent. _We_ do it in the trenches." He laughs lightly and reaches up to tweak my nose, relaxing the scowl I must have etched on my features. I feel the lines in my face ease. "If you ask me, her millions would be better served donated for food or in building a hospital."

He's right, and I trace the skin between his fingers making a smile rise to his face. I sigh lightly, my mind wandering as I analyze his words. "Were you 'tagged' when you were in the Military?" I hazard a guess that he was, judging by the bitterness in his tone.

"Yeah."

I wait for more, but that is all I get. I decide not to push it and busy myself with smoothing out the wrinkles on his bed.

"Rachel?"

I glance up at him and the intensity of his eyes stops me cold. I focus on the bed sheets again. "Yes?"

"What's gonna happen between us?"

I swallow under the sudden pressure I feel from the question as it levies the full force of his presence on me. I can't get words to form and I have to wait an uncomfortably long time before I'm able to answer. "What do you mean?" I redirect the conversation, "I mean- we will go back on tour when you are feeling better, and put this whole silly business behind us. Just pretend like nothing ever happened, you know?"

"I can't do that."

It makes my hands perspire, the furious pounding of my heart rushing blood to my cheeks. "Yes you can, let's just not think about it." I glance up at him, willing him to not do what I think he is going to do. I can feel it, the temperature rising between us, the squaring of his shoulders as he focuses in on me. I silently beg him not to do this, my fingers tightening on the thin knitted blanket tucked at the base of the bed.

"Rachel, I was so worried I was going to lose you. I kept thinking about that over and over and I, Rachel-" The utter finality in the way he states my name makes my heart literally stop. I can't meet his gaze; I just stare at the bed. "I love you."

It hurts and I close my eyes. I knew it was coming– I just _knew_ it. "Please, don't say that to me."

"I've said it a hundred times before, kiddo." He notes and when I glance up at him, he has a twisted expression of confusion that melts into a grin.

I sigh, "Yeah, but not like that, not like you mean it."

"I always mean it." He laughs lightly.

I focus on him, harder this time. Hoping I don't have to spell it out. "Mark, you know what I mean. Don't say it like you _mean it_,mean it."

He breathes heavily and shifts, rattling the IV against the bed rail. "I don't understand."

It's so exasperating, skirting the line. Already tonight I have dealt with so much, and this feels like the last straw.

"You don't understand?" I get up, circling the room to get distance between us. How can he not understand? I mean he has to know by now. He has to get it, he knew about Sandra.

And Danni – I mean we basically lived together.

I pause, turning back to him as he gives me a jovial smile and a sideways glance. "You don't understand, huh? I think you are just messing with me now."

He runs his tongue over his teeth, like the words need to be cleaned before he says them. "Yeah, maybe a little." He shrugs lightly. "Maybe I'm just hopeful that you have enough room in your heart to love me back, you know?"

My hands are shaking and I firm them against my thighs. "I love you a lot, or this would be an easy conversation. It has nothing to do with love in my heart." I dart a glance at the empty doorway, praying someone would come through and save me from this conversation. "I just, h-have you ever loved someone and sworn that it should be right for you, but it isn't? That it can't be."

"That's us then?"

"Yes." I search frantically for anything to say. "It isn't a physical thing, you are very handsome and good looking, and god-" I laugh. "You are sinfully sexy."

"But?"

"I just can't go there." I try to force the words out of my throat by patting my chest. "I love you, and you are here, in my heart. God, but I can't just flip the switch that makes me the woman you want me to be." I sigh running my hands over my face. "I just can't kick start that engine of desire and need like I _should_ feel for someone I love; if I loved you in the way that you want me to."

Mark sighs, "So, let me get it straight," he glances at me, "you love me, but not like _that_."

"Yes, exactly." It crushes him, I know it does, but he deserves the truth and not a lie regardless of the situation. "I'm sorry."

"So, like fully gay?"

The label rattles me a little, especially with the way he looks at me like he has never seen me before. It's a mix of questions and pain and more than a little anger, I can tell.

"Yes." I draw the word very carefully, feeling it rattle around the room and pelt me with it's directness. It is a mixture of relief and exposure, the secret I have held for so long, laying between us spoken.

"Good."

I boggle at him, "good?"

Then he laughs. "I didn't want anything getting in the way of our working relationship." His eyebrows wag playfully as he seems to recover more of the Mark I know. "You are no Whitney Houston."

I'm so relieved I grin. "Thank god."

Only moments later the laughter is tapered off, and we are silent again. We square gazes in the hospital room, measuring one another. I wonder what he is thinking, if he hates me for it. I can't read his expression. When I see his mouth open, I'm scared of what he is going to say. "I never really liked Danni. She was too business-y."

"All work and no play?" I tease lightly, though it feels weird and kind of uncomfortable sitting here with him now. I want to escape and retreat, having opened up I just want to crawl back inside myself again. These types of things – secrets, make me feel vulnerable, no longer impervious to the world. It's all just ammo that can be used against me.

"I don't know about that, but I guess you would know better." I don't miss the innuendo in his voice, but before I can comment a doctor swoops in, knocking sharply on the door. He draws my eyes and I use him as an excuse.

"I'm gonna go get coffee, and stuff." I add, more than a little frazzled by everything.

"Rach," he glares at me as I start for the door, "just go home."

The option finally sounds really good. "Okay."

And just like that, I'm gathering up my things.

Out in the hall I can breathe again and I take in whooping gulps of air as I head past the nurses' station. That conversation, I think back, was the most uncomfortable conversation I have ever had. I tighten my hand around my coat.

I ride the elevator alone and watch the floors slowly tick by. Honesty as a policy is incredibly overrated. Honesty is one of those double edged swords that does nothing but hurt people. I muse over my words, the pain I know I caused my friend. It sucks and it hurts. It also makes me nervous. I've already had to pay off one person, legally force them into silence through non-disclosures, and I don't want to do it again.

Never again.

I catch the TV screen beside the door, my eyes grazing over the headline from CNN as the reporter talks silently.

_Explosion at The Prince George._

The news crawl blurs before my eyes as I feel a hot tear slam against the top of my hand. It rattles me, as the image paints a picture of the damage. It looks to have been a small bomb; I cock my head, a few small bombs, one at each of the double doors leading into the ballroom. Not as much damage in the aftermath as it felt like there was during the explosion. Everything was scorched, yes, but it looks to be superficial aside from the doors.

Another image, this one with the sourcing at the top, _Olivia Torrington_.

It's the bomber, his hands in motion as he speaks. His face is twisted at odd angles, bitter, awe inspiring. I stare at the image. Even I can see the finality in his eyes as they are frozen, staring off at where Quinn had been standing. I didn't realize how close Olivia must have been to him, like she could reach out and touch death. It is probably the most iconic picture I have ever seen, and even though I hate her, my God – does she have an eye.

The headline changes as the elevator dings at the bottom level.

_Eco-Terrorist group 'Black Swan' claims responsibility for bombing._

Black Swan. I run the name over and over as I stride through the lobby. I flip my brown jacket out and curl it around my shoulders. What kind of world do we live in? I shiver as my thoughts hang on the question. Around me I can hear the news reports and I focus on deliberately blocking it out. There will be plenty of time to think about it at home, in the dark, where the world can't see me freak out.

"I see that, and no amount of anything is going to change it."

I glance up at the angry voice right as Quinn stands and clips her phone off. I don't understand what she is doing here, but the idea of talking to her makes my stomach turn. I brush past her, as she turns, and I really hope she doesn't stop me, please don't recognize me.

"Rachel?" It stops me mid-step. Of course she would recognize me; I'm the only asshole in this building still wearing an evening gown. I close my eyes and take a steadying breath.

"Berry?"

"Don't call me that."

She invades my presence again, just as she had done not a few hours before. This time though, instead of being looped in Dolce, she is clad in jeans and a blouse. I envy her comfort suddenly in the seconds between my words and hers. "How is Mark?" She disregards the annoyance in my tone.

I can't answer because I don't know. I chew it over with some well placed glances away. "He's fine, just tired. I'm heading home so he can sleep."

"Are you okay?" She sounds concerned, genuinely concerned. I don't know why it irritates me. It must be remnants of the past, my bitterness over previous trespasses and wounds that will never seem to heal.

"I'm fine, just-" I rake my hands through my hair, willing myself to say something so she will leave me alone. "I-I have to go."

"Okay." She glances at the glass doors and the night beyond them. "Are you okay to drive? Do you need me to call a car?"

It infuriates me that she thinks I can't take care of myself. I'm not stupid, I'm not a child, and I'm certainly not _her_ concern. As if I don't have my own ability to get a ride. I have a chauffeur for God's sake! I'll never again be that girl she can pick on when her mood swings dictate. "I don't need anything from you. I'm fine."

"Good." She clears her throat. "Well, I would say it was nice seeing you again, but it's been a hell of a night."

Her dark humor irritates me. "Yeah, I think the pleasure was all yours."

I start walking, ambling toward the hospital's entrance. Beyond the doors, the flash of a paparazzi camera blinds me. The vultures.

I'm almost to the door; another ten feet and I'll be free, able to climb into the town car that John has brought around. I hear Quinn's words follow me, her desire to get the last word always paramount. "Don't let the tabloids hit you in the ass on your way out."

I glance back as the doors swish open and welcome in the cold night. Screams for my attention deafen me. My life, my pain, my torment – blasted in blinding flashes for the world to see. Yet, as much as I hate the never-ending stream of cat calls and commentaries –her words hurt more.

I hope she can see how much I hate her in my look, I hope she knows it. I hope like hell it hurts her, if she has a soul anyway. Her gaze follows me, out to the sidewalk and the town car. I slide inside, John holding the reporters and photographers at bay.

And surrounded by the leather and shadows I'm finally about to break down.


	7. The Edict: Quinn

**Chapter 7: The Edict: Quinn**

* * *

_**May 14th, 2025**_

_**NYU Medical Center, New York**_

_**Lobby**_

Why did I say that? I wonder that as I watch Rachel vanish into a flurry of bulb flashes. I squeeze the phone in my hand like it is a lifeline to my sanity. What is it about her that makes feel like I'm sixteen again? Something in the tone between us makes me feel angry and stupid and irrational, but worse than that I act on those impulses. It's ridiculous and I feel a heavy tightness in my chest at the thought. It's been a long time since I have felt this, I realize. Remorse.

When was the last time?

It was when Beth graduated from junior high school.

I pinpoint the memory with such clarity the emotion rolls back and pounds against my brittle walls. As the first sting hits my eyes, I silence everything and drown myself in the soothing calm of nothingness. It's like flipping a switch, the shutting off of my emotion.

In my opinion every woman needs it, the ability to say _fuck the world_ and protect herself.

Some need it more than others.

I gaze out emotionless at the faces of the paparazzi. They stare at me, moving around outside the doors. Coiling and uncoiling cord as they string electrical line like party streamers. It might as well be a party; stories like this don't come along all the time. The icy princess they have made me out to be, dethroned and splayed out for retribution. I measure them silently, wondering what I did to make them hate me. What was the image that I portrayed that made them christen me such a terrible thing?

There were only a handful of people that should feel that I'm the cold princess they have dubbed me, and that title was earned rightfully. And one of them showed me tonight that she was right to remember. I know she will never forget that hard earned lesson.

What was it that I had said to her before? What were the horrible words I had left her to remember me by the first time?

_Who in their right mind could ever learn to love someone like you?_

I close my eyes. I'll think about it tomorrow. Today – tonight, is a different broken record of pain I have to deal with.

The media is still waiting for me; I know they are, in their countenance and the barely veiled salivation over my misery. I don't know how Rachel does it, knowing her life is kept out of public view by flimsy legal restrictions. I press her out of my mind before my most recent words come back to haunt me.

Tomorrow.

I need to get to my car, but the last thing I want to do is walk out there, and let them eat me alive. They stalk the doors back and forth like a lions in a cage, eyes fixed and focused, daring me to walk into their jaws.

I'm so focused on the image I almost don't hear the shrill scream of my phone until a receptionist clears her throat.

I bring it up to my ear as I press my fingertips to the bridge of my nose and squeeze.

"Yes."

"Quinn?"

"Yes." I glance behind me and slowly settle into one of the waiting room chairs. It's cold under me, and I feel it soaks through my jeans, raking my skin in chills.

"It's me," It's Bryan March, my head of publicity and co-owner of my technology. I turn my back to the paparazzi as my face twists into a scowl.

"I realize this, and I don't have time for your bullsh-" I drop my voice as I glance up at a few passing people who shoot a glance at me, "just, spit it out."

"We need to close up shop."

"Like hell," I whisper not hesitating the glance at the media beyond the doors.

"Look, Quinn. The investors are threatening to sell; I just got a call from Waters and if we don't do something right now, Dandelion Industries will be bankrupt before we get back to California. We should sell it off and cut our losses."

His words freeze me cold. How can he say something like that?

"Tell the investors you will set up a press conference for tomorrow, I'll fly back to California tonight and throw something together." I chew my lip, "we can save this."

"No, we have to sell now or we lose it all."

I stare out the doors again.

"I can't save something if there is nothing to save, I have to do something now."

"You _have_ to do it. Sell it."

"I don't _have_ to do _anything_." I whisper dangerously. He must feel pretty entitled to talk to me like this, considering I could fire him right now and get a much cheaper head of marketing. Or I must sound really transparently weak; I pause on my urge to smite him from my higher position.

It's then that I realize the difference in my tone, the timbre of my voice completely changing. It had sounded soft before, gentle even. I don't remember that tone, and I reach reflexively for my throat, wondering where it came from. I smooth my hand up through my hair, raking order into it, and when I see the motion on the TV high above my head I realize I'm in the background of a press report. I straighten up reflexively, standing - watching my image do it delayed a second later.

The reporters.

"I'm going to fix this." I clear my throat. "We don't have to sell."

I don't know how I'm supposed to go out there when I don't know anything. I don't know the motive of the terrorists, I don't know the damage to our marketing plan, and our political alliances could very well be busted wide open like a broken melon. I certainly don't know public opinion, or viewer response. How the hell I'm going to speak about concern for public welfare and the new company plan, is beyond me.

But March is right. I have to do something. Regardless of not having the luxury of having time to catch my breath.

"What are you going to do Quinn?"

"Talk to the people."

"Yeah, you look like hell. I really hope you can go out there and tell them that you're unshaken and unmovable." I falter a glance over at the widening collection of media outlets. Everything from CNN and FOX news to Local news stations, photographers to passersby waiting and watching. I hear Brian March in my ear.

"They see you're looking; they are talking about you now. They are asking for information and practically begging you to come out. You better do this, because I'll be the first to dump my shares if you don't pull this off."

I swallow as I smooth my free hand down over my jacket and start toward the door. March's words follow me as I make my way, much the same way Rachel just did. "Go fuck yourself March. I'll see you back in California."

I clip the phone off and instead focus on what I'm going to say. That we _will_ continue working, we _will_ change the world. That in the history books there are countless examples of purposeless violence and resistance to change, and we are no exception to this rule. That we will build Dandelion until every person in the world can be cared for the way we are entitled to be as a God given right.

As the doors swish open and the flood of the crowd surges at me, I smile to show them I have no fear. I'm impenetrable and by extension Dandelion is invulnerable. I review my thoughts again, and as I go to say 'thank you,' the words stop in my throat.

Everything I had planned to say totally disappears.

The only thing I can think of is, why did I say what I did to Rachel?

A beat passes.

Two.

In the bright light and slowly misting rain I'm looking through the media hounds, seeing her walk away again and it fills my chest with a sharp pain that brings tears to my eyes. It infuriates me and I swallow the urge to scream bloody murder as rage flashes through me.

_Be calm Quinn_, _be calm,_ I repeat to myself like a mantra to God.

The silence is carrying too long, inappropriately long. I can see people swallow and cameras wind with flashing pictures of my mix of sentiment. In a panic, I hit the flip switch on my emotions, but it doesn't work – not this time. I try again, slamming my mind closed to the very idea that Rachel Berry exists, and blissfully, finally, I'm consumed by the moniker I carry so well.

I edge another smile, this time gentle in its mockery of those weaker emotions I can't feel anymore.

"Thank you," I clear my throat, "ladies and gentlemen of the press and to all of you at home, as well. I know you're looking for answers. We are too, but I don't believe we are going to have the answers soon enough; certainly not soon enough to stay our minds and comfort our fears."

I look down for dramatic effect and when I look back up at the hundred faces with millions behind the unblinking cameras pointed at me, my voice carries a confidence I have never felt before. "This has been a difficult day, and there will be many more ahead." A news caster leans toward me and it ushers me on. "We will not be deterred. We will continue to be vigilant. The road to Utopia is paved in the dreams of men and women like you and I. We will _never_ be scared into forgetting that the best we can do for the world is protect and save as many people as we can. This is my commitment to you, all of you. I ask only that you believe in the possibility of a better world."

My voice is so deep with steeled passion, a well of wisdom I wear like a charlatan, firm as I offer my final words. I start into the empty eye of the camera as it catalogues everything with unyielding certainty, "I will stand guard of your hope of a better world, if you will just hope with me."

It hangs in the air, my words and the fear that they can see I don't believe it. The conviction in my voice is an act of nothing more than treachery. I feel peace in the idea no matter how ludicrous it is. My inhuman calm tempered by the knowledge that I know I'm lying – for the better of everyone.

It's shock.

I'm shocked that my dreams are crumbling around me and yet I'm doing what I was built to do. I'm realizing my destiny, carved out from a young age. The princess they have created in the media is alive and well, earning her title through soft spoken words of conviction laden doubt. The grown woman before the camera is the same one that walked the halls of her high school. Not a flicker of emotion and a wall of lies holding her straight.

"I have nothing further." I wedge quickly, turning as I realize what I've just done. The magic is broken, and I feel my hands shaking. I pocket them quickly, dodging screams for my attention. Questions barrage me like bullets, whizzing so close to my skin they burn.

Son of a bitch, before I shatter I have to escape.

The phone in my pocket is ringing, but I don't pick it up. I just walk, feeling it buzz against my hip and rattle what little I haven't thrown up tonight. I know what call is coming. I have been fired before. The same fears plague me now as the ones that did then.

I choose to ignore it for now though. There will be plenty of time for the horror of getting ousted from my own company because I showed how weak I am. All it takes is one voting and four raised hands.

I knew that once the company went public, Dandelion was no longer mine. I thought maybe there wasn't anything harder than that. It was like having children, raising them and then letting them go. It will certainly be the closest I ever come to creating an entity with unalienable rights and the ability to live beyond my death.

Well, an entity of my own.

My footfalls echo up around me and it sounds like a funeral procession. Dandelion will never be mine again, not after tonight. Not after showing the world what a poor leader I am - that I am such a _girl_. The word is like a curse on my lips as I remember the moment of glistening tears that never fell. Just deserts for the heartless bitch I am, a final act of retribution by the angelic Rachel Berry.

Only one reporter has the balls to follow me all the way to my car and once I pass the barricade to the garage, I know I'm safe from him as well. The security guard at the entrance of the parking garage stops him, and I hear them scuffle for a moment.

"Where have _you_ been this whole time?" His words follow me, haunting me with their inflection.

It stops me and my heart hammers as I contemplate my possible answers. I smile brokenly, darkly, painfully before I turn to him. "Behind a desk, in an office."

"You know that people will want to know who you are!"

I turn away. "There really isn't much to know, just a girl from Ohio who had dreams of a different world."

The words are fitting, cryptic and completely honest in their hidden implication. I once was a girl who dreamed of a different world, one where I could love who I loved. A world with a small house, a garden and a picket fence, a place I could learn what family was supposed to have been.

What I got was a penthouse condo of concrete to mirror a heart made of stone. And rightfully so, I damn myself as I meet my reflection; burning hazel greets me, I always get what I deserve.

As I drive away that single reporter is still smiling and watching me.

I wonder what he will write about me. Will it depict the silent lone walk of a dying leader? Will it be a diatribe about how cold I am, or a quote on my royal entitlement? The rain comes down harder, washing away my presence, wiping any chance of learning my location away with it.

I take the back streets, familiar enough with this part of the city to cut down an alley or two, avoiding a tail. I make it to the hotel and forgo giving a shit about anything as I plow past cars waiting for the valet. I pop the car door and with a casual flip I toss the keys at him.

"Park it."

It's a snarl, and even the cars I cut in front of know better to honk at me as I stalk past them. I hit the elevator and punch the floor button, riding it to the top, the pinnacle. Walking from one modern cloud to the next, penthouse to penthouse, I'm a dark foreboding angel. I laugh to no one at nothing, completing the image in my mind.

The key card slides me in and I have my laptop booting before I know what I'm doing. I kick my shoes off as a rumble of thunder rattles the window beside me. It reminds me pleasantly of the storms in Ohio where I grew up. The yearning for the fantastic power of nature from the safety of the inside; warmly tucked into the basement sofa as lightning and thunder rolled.

My phone rings again and I silence it.

Already the news reports are popping up, but I bypass them. I don't need that right now. I go straight to the internal server and log in.

Everything is chaos. Utter. Fucking. Chaos.

Marketing is projecting my speech will do very little to waylay the panic and knee jerking financial bailout and march is clamoring to still sell. Finance is looking at taking out a business to business loan of a cool fifteen million to offset losses for today. The Operations team, Waters included is leaving for India tonight to reaffirm our business alliance. Production is crapping widgets over the budget adjustment, because the advertizing company is threatening to walk.

They are all saying Dandelion is toxic for their careers. Not actually saying it, but thinking it, brooding about it, planning a contingency for it. And I don't blame them for it at all.

My faith shaken, I understand it completely.

And then I remember who I am and what I am meant to do. They will never have my company or my dream. It would take a much better, stronger, more terrible person to beat me than anything they can come at me with. I grit my teeth until I can hear them grind against each other.

Come hell or high water, I will push Dandelion through; if not on my personality and its potential, then on money and power.

Beside me, the phone rattles and it drags me from my thoughts. I stare at it, as it lights up the lacquered desk and casts an eerie glow that mixes with my dimmed computer screen. I palm it slowly, flipping it to reveal a number I don't know before the screen goes black. I puzzle at it; it's a New York number. It's been the same one this whole time. I wonder who it could be.

It rings again, startling me, and I scramble to pick it up.

"Hello?"

"Is this Quinn? Quinn Fabray? This is Martha at the Sloan Kettering Cancer Center."

I hear a nurse's voice crowd the line and it literally makes my hand go weak, the phone rattling down to the floor beneath me. I curse at myself as I shift and pat for it with a bare foot, before pulling it from under the desk and back up to my ear. "Sorry, yes, this is she?"

"It's okay." There is a long silence, and I lean forward, everything suddenly heavy as thoughts pour through my mind. "I'm sorry for what you have already been through tonight, but I have some more bad news."

"I know." Hospital calls are always bad news. I wait as the wind dashes droplets against the black world beside me. My stomach coils and heaves as seconds pass.

"I'm calling in regard to Alec Horwitz." She is somber and it forms a lump in my throat. Suddenly all I remember is his coughing and I'm up grabbing my shoes. "We received him in admitting about an hour ago and he is asking for you."

I don't know why I can't make a sound; I can feel my lips moving even as I slip my feet in my shoes and grab for my coat.

"Hello?"

"Yes, I'm sorry, I'm on my way." I go to hang up but scream out, startling myself in the dimness. "Wait!"

"Yes?" She asks politely, if not somewhat fearful at my next request.

"Where did you say you were from?"

"Sloan Kettering Cancer Center."

"Cancer?"

It is the scariest word I know next to death.

"Alec has been seeing us for a while."

I don't hear anything more after she says that and any cold impartiality I might have used as a shield is eaten by my sudden unbridled pain. "I'll be there in twenty minutes." I promise and punch the phone off as I hurry out the door.

I'm there in fifteen.


	8. Revelations: Rachel

**Chapter 8: Revelations: Rachel**

* * *

_**May 15th, 2025**_

_**Manhattan, New York**_

_**Rachel Berry Household**_

My finger is sweeping over the TV remote giving me only a moment to listen to the stations; thousands of channels and nothing to watch. Well, I remit as I gaze out the window at the hazy pre-dawn light, there are things to watch but I just can't bring myself to do it.

The sporadic words interrupt the solitude between the channels.

_So how about that Quinn Fabray? I hear th-_

Click.

_-and Dandelion is supposed to be a super computer in a chip-_

Click.

_If I was a shareholder I wouldn't hesitate to sell. That Fabray woman is -_

Click.

I mute the talking heads and toss the remote across the sofa. I hate the pundits. I hate their commentary more. I'm a smart girl and I can figure out things on my own. I lean back stretching long across my 'L' shaped sofa that flanks a view of Central Park. I turn from the screen and just stare out across the hazy scene.

As much as it bothers me to admit the prejudice in the developed world, I think people hate Quinn because she is a woman to be feared. Okay, I shrug lightly under my own thoughts, it might be warranted fear, because she can be intense and frightening. However, I think the crux of their disconcerting stance is based solely on the fact that she is a woman.

A smart one.

A competitive one.

I'm used to the cultural traditions that subjugate women in other countries. I respect the fact that there are views that aren't going to be the same as mine. I'm even aware of the fact that they will make me uncomfortable and angry, but seeing it here. I glance at the television as the most recent commentator screams out his ideas mutedly. His face is red, looking to about burst above his overly tight tie.

Yes, they are bitter she is a woman. Her classy calm and charming aloofness leaves the opposite gender scrambling to make up ground. In a field like technology where masculinity is the way of the world, her high heeled upturned calves and luscious lips rend everything to pieces. It leaves them, all of them, at a loss. And she beat all the men to the table with the development of the century.

I drop my thoughts, losing myself in the view again, wishing I could sleep. I trace the treetops as light from the park shines up between them, making the fog glow and hang eerily. However, like a rehearsed song, my thoughts return to her.

Quinn might have changed the future of the world. Now that is a popularity contest she would love. Who is better, Albert Einstein or Quinn Fabray? The idea makes me laugh out loud in the darkness.

For a moment I catch and hang on the idea that little children will learn about Quinn in history class, and it makes me bow my head against the pillows. I can see it plainly as day, Quinn's picture laid in homage to her discovery. It makes my lips curl in a sudden agony. At least she finally got what she wanted. The popularity and fame she had hoarded like it mattered more than breathing, because it certainly mattered more than people.

The memory of our last encounter, the square off in a hallway before graduation, her having beaten me for valedictorian by a meager hundredth of a percent, makes my adult self pity the girl I once was. How she loved to show she was better, worth more, loved more. And because she was angry, she had lashed out.

_Who in their right mind could ever learn to love someone like you?_

I understand why she said that now, in reference to my fathers; I understand that what she did was because her parents weren't there. It was because her parents were mean and self absorbed and she had no one and nothing to turn to, and she wanted me to feel the same pain. I blot the corner of my eye with my ring finger as it waters under my emotions, but mostly exhaustion.

Knowing the provocation now; it's cold comfort to the little girl who cried in a bathroom for an hour, and for years afterward.

It meant more to me than just a cut down about my family. I read between the lines easily enough to see the anger and pain and bitterness in her icy green eyes. It was because-

Even as an adult I can't voice it easily. I swallow against then fear I feel at my admonition.

It was because I loved her.

And all I wanted was her approval.

I breathe shallowly under the intensity of the emotion that I haven't un-caged in a long time. It was because I _had_ loved her that her words had broken my heart into a million pieces. And I knew that she could never love me back. Not because she was straight, or beautiful – no, simply because she was Quinn and I knew that she could never be tamed.

I huff a long breath as I stare at the ceiling of cloud outside, ominous and dark in their implication.

It was silly and stupid, because even then I knew it was the idea of her I loved; the idea that I could capture her as my own. I adored the idea of her supremacy, her coldness, and the romanticized ideal of immunity in the face of the beast.

I nod to myself as I pinpoint the adolescent desires.

It was the fantasy that I could somehow be the only one inside her world, kept warm by a passion as encompassing as the ice she froze humanity with.

My smile falters and I smooth my hand over my face, wiping away the whispers of pain I feel betraying me there. It seems the opposite is true, I think silently. I stare down at the material of my sofa, tracing the patterns idly with a fingertip. Here she is altruistically saving humanity and stabbing me with icicles at every turn. Not that I don't deserve it, I reprimand myself at the anger I feel, I haven't been very nice either.

So why do I feel it still? Why do I still respond to the hurt of her distance and lack of regard? Her words are like a whip lash, marking the soft vulnerable parts of me hidden beneath. I shake my head, getting up to put distance between me and the ghosting memories that threaten me with things I'm too old to be thinking about. It's almost dirty that my thirty-one year old brain can put me right back into the place I was when I was seventeen, the feelings and the images, painting effortlessly inside my mind.

I pad to the kitchen, trailing my hands over the dark wood cases filled with books, and awards. My victories. Things I did without thought of her and her god damn approval.

I'm surprised by my anger as I stare at my platinum records and my Grammys on my way. I know I don't have to feel like this; I have more than proven myself. So why the desire for her to take notice settles in the empty space of my chest, I don't understand. I don't know why it makes me clamor for it, search for it and need it breathlessly. As if anything she could say now would make the pain of that day go away. I know it won't, but still I want it.

I firmly stop my thoughts before like Alice I crawl down a rabbit hole I can't find my way back from. I fix my eyes on my treasures and markings of success. "I did this." Firmer, I request of myself. "I did all this without anyone's approval but my own."

Well, with the pundits' approval, I add silently. They were worse than reporters.

I uncork my favorite Pinot Grigio and sip lightly from my glass as I think back to the news reports I have seen, studies and research I have been pulling since the gala. I set my glass down as I cave a little under the flashing images of the bomber and the hotel.

A large gulp of wine later I'm a little more stable. I blink the thoughts away.

Quinn and our splintered past aside, what she has is just amazing. I remember back to an interview the night before with a lieutenant colonel in the Army who said that the processing power of current supercomputers could crack an encoded letter in ten days. Quinn's chip could do it in ten minutes, effectively saving thousands of American and Allies lives in the process. The applications of her technology could change the world and thrust everything a giant leap forward. For education, medicine, homeland defense, vehicles, factories, companies – everything, she could revolutionize and improve.

Then there are the critics. They say it's dangerous, that no one person can be trusted with it. They are probably right. They also say that Quinn will sell it to the highest bidder. To which I think they are wrong and I scoff at that idea; she has enough money I'm sure.

There are also people like Mark, good people that know that the government will take it, if not by dealing than by force. And despite the pain she may have caused me in another life when I was at her mercy, I don't want to see her hurt.

I certainly don't want to see her killed.

Then I realize that for someone I dislike so much, I spend a lot of time thinking about her and her well being. I sigh and roll my eyes at the joke my life is as I scoop up my wine glass and take a healthy sip as I stand. I still my stomach through sheer will alone.

I still care.

I care far too much.

It's funny that the admission of my feelings in the middle of my dark kitchen feels more vulnerable than being on a stage in a foreign country with insurgents and bandits taking aim at me. I think it's because where they will most likely miss, her shots and words hit their mark every single time.

"Damn you Quinn Fabray." I whisper, lifting my eyes to the rafters. "And in case you are thinking of acting that out, that was for me, God, not you." I add, because I don't want anyone getting too hasty to avenge the little girl she hurt once upon a time.

Back in the living room I tuck into my corner of the sofa and with wine in hand I arm myself with the remote once more. I blink into the exhaustion I feel and the sleep that can't find me. I will go to sleep if it kills me, I promise myself. I just need cartoons.

I drink my adult beverage as I set out to find some childish comfort. The duality isn't lost on me and I smile.

I wonder if Quinn watches cartoons when she can't sleep? I sigh heavily as I bring the volume back up to an audible level.

_You may see her as an ice princess, but I know there is something more to it._

I stop, my finger hovering over the button. Before me, the big screen paints a picture of a young man, his hair unruly and charming. I recognize him instantly as the next big up-and-comer in the entertainment world. Daniel Wright. It's his show, 'Wright on What's Right.' I debate changing the channel, wondering what more of Quinn he is going to talk about.

The screen focuses on his huge studio as he leans across his desk.

_Let's set aside the psychobabble about Dandelion. That war is a moral one to be waged for decades to come. Whether you are a believer in using technology for the advancement of our own well being, or a purist set on wasting away – it doesn't really matter. Even if you hate the government, or believe it violates your right to privacy the fundamental fact is we stand on the edge of a new world._

_Take it or leave it, Pandora 's Box is already open and once opened nothing can be changed. Instead of the technology, I want to talk about the hero behind the magic._

His words catch me a little off guard and I set the remote down beside me as I bring my feet up and tuck a blanket around my legs. Did he say hero?

_Hero, you may be asking yourself. Did he say hero? Well, I am here to tell you that yes I did, and I mean it._

I roll a taste of my beverage around in my mouth as I mull over his words. It certainly is a different view than most. Across the screen I see the press conference from the night before. I had watched it shamelessly kneeling before the television; watching every word pour from her mouth like it was coming straight to my ears alone.

And then I rewound it, which I will never admit to.

I take another sip of wine as I think about it, about the one moment that stood out for me. It was at the beginning of her speech, where for an instant she was seemed almost pained with the depth of the look she had. It was so utterly human and beautiful. An expression I had never seen; Quinn captured forever in a fold of emotion she couldn't process. It had only been a moment, and then I watched the cache delete on her emotions as she buried whatever glimmers of kindness she possessed.

_The litmus test of any leader is their bravery in the face of insurmountable odds and last night, I had the opportunity to witness a truly remarkable moment in our history. As I stood in the rain outside our very own New York University Medical Center, a new leader rose from the destruction of The Prince George Hotel. I listened to that impromptu press conference given by what I will call a savior for our own time._

_Where once Joan of Arc stood as a champion for the causes of good and rained down fire from heaven in the form of militarism the world had never seen – last night-_

It almost looks like he is about to be emotional, and I feel my own emotions wind.

_I watched goodness wage war on those who would seek to stop it. I watched one single voice in a sea of doubt rise up and say that nothing will stop her noble cause. And this, ladies and gentlemen is what makes a hero._

I'm frozen by the images on the screen I see. Quinn in khakis and t-shirts in Africa, Quinn in death camps in Zimbabwe, Quinn feeding starving children and elderly in India. I steady my breath with a hand on my chest, the images pulling at my heart strings. This isn't Quinn, not the steeled woman I know.

I remember the scents and sounds, the hot heat of anger and shame and powerlessness. I had been there, in those places. It garroted heart and soul to watch their faces, their pain. And now I know that everywhere there was pain and evil and suffering, she was there.

Like an angel.

As the images flash on the screen, I lose the words because to me they don't matter.

I see a Quinn, but it isn't _Quinn_. It is a bright eyed, emotive young woman; years before politicking and responsibility stole the light out her face. I stare at the images of her expressions, the green in her eyes darker, more intense. I literally see the years pile on as the images change, as her looks go from soft to determined, to cold. I'm mesmerized by it and my heart bleeds wondering what she has been through, what she has seen and what ends she has gone through to make her dream the reality for people everywhere.

It leaves me feeling vacant and unaccomplished as I glance at my awards lined in glass and gold.

_But I want to tell you the truly amazing part of the story, because not all the silver spoon feeding in the world and not all the Ivy League education can make a person a hero. It all comes down to this._

_Ninety three percent._

I bite my lip because I'm scared about what he is about to say. The image of a high school picture assaults me with clarity so stark it burns the inside of my retinas. Quinn's year book photo in all its glory paints the screen. I stare at it, the Cheshire cat of her smile nearly winding me. It cores through me as it always have.

_Quinn Fabray, the Ice Princess, does not have the fairy tale story that the media propagates. As a matter of fact, her story is so deep, painful and intense I could spend a whole hour programming on it. Instead I just want to leave you with this;_

_Ninety three percent of young girls who get pregnant in high school never return to finish. Quinn Fabray was one of those kind of girls, thought of as social outcasts and pariahs. She was shamed, left to drift between friends' homes at the tender age of sixteen._

"Oh my god!" I stand up so quickly I slosh wine across my coffee table. How could he say that on a news channel? How could he just come out and speak about her business, her private business? I set my cup down and lunge for a napkin I had left from dinner, my eyes glued to the screen as I blot the table blindly.

_Yet – unlike ninety three percent of her contemporaries, she went back. She finished her high school degree, even graduated valedictorian. She went on to Yale University on her merit alone, got her masters from Harvard. This woman, disenfranchised from her home and family, without support structure, carved a company with state-of-the-art technology and then implemented a business plan._

It goes back to Wright and his soft eyes.

_You know, that is enough to make her a hero in some circles I know. Here is the kicker though… it wasn't for war. Think about it._

And I do hang on his words as he sneers in disbelief at the camera. It makes me feel strangely guilty.

_After being spit on and kicked down and mistreated and cast aside as a child, her goal with the invention of the century wasn't to wage war and conquer everything in sight. It wasn't to exact revenge on abusers and war mongers. It was for medicine, for science. It was to make the world better, safer, and leave it in a more beautiful state than it was before she got here._

_This is the action of the heroes we still read about in school, and the role models we want our children to emulate. So I say to you tonight, my viewers, there are two sides to every story and it's time for your to decide, what's right for you._

_Again, my name is Daniel Wright, and I thank you for your time. Goodnight._


	9. My Goodbyes: Quinn

**Chapter 9: My Goodbyes: Quinn**

* * *

_**May 17th, 2025**_

_**Manhattan, New York**_

_**Sloan Kettering Cancer Center**_

"I can't believe you." I feel my mouth moving, forming words I'm too afraid to say. I just bully through it, because it has to be done. The questions have to be asked. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Quinn, what would I have told you?" Alec gives me a pointed look as he stops mid motion. His hands lightly hold the ends of his bowtie. "I'm dying?"

"You're not dying." I hear myself saying, just to hear him scoff at me and go back to his primping.

Having spent the last two days in the thick of a cancer treatment center, and I have come to an assessment. Boardrooms; angry pissed off stockholder filled boardrooms, are easier to deal with.

I blink through my exhaustion, watching his deliberate motions as he fights with the tie at his neck. I remember all the years that it was such an easy thing for him. He lets it go with a careful slick of his fingers and the ends fall to a rest on his narrow shoulders.

"Quinn?"

They are so much narrower than I remember them to be.

"Quinn?"

I can see he is watching me, his fatherly expression so fatalistic in its implication I can't even breathe. "Quinn, damn it child, look at me."

And I do, gratefully holding steady.

"Now we both knew that someday all the radiation I played around with would catch up to me." He coughs in effect, making my hands perspire and the walls close in. I think he sees how wide my eyes go, because he laughs softly. "Now is not the time." He twinkles a smile at me. "Not yet."

"Good." I swallow, coaxing my voice. I struggle to make light of the situation and tap a nail against his bedrail. "So, when do you think they will give you parole?"

He makes a sound somewhere between a curse and a sigh, pulling the bowtie from his shoulders. "I do not think they want me to go anywhere. It helps their costs go up if I stay."

"True." I regard my phone as it vibrates on the stack of magazines I have beside his bed. It is the only piece of technology in my makeshift shanty within his room. Adorned with a lounge chair and a blanket, littered with bad hospital food pudding cups, I had staked my claim. It feels so precariously temporary it reinforces the dread that I won't be here for long. The Alec might not be. That nothing will ever stay.

"Are you going to get your phone?"

It breaks my trance. "What, no?" I shake my head. "I don't care who it is, March can handle it, even if it is dire."

Alec rolls his eyes. "That fool. He is a simpleton. You met him where in college again, English Literature?"

"Public Speaking, if I remember correctly."

"Not much of an orator, I will say."

I smile, allowing him to pull me away from my thoughts. "No, not much."

"Where is my paper?" Alec grouses. "I need my morning paper. Nurse!"

I roll my eyes. "I'm pretty sure you can't just yell at them to bring it for you, that isn't how it works."

In deference to my opinion though, the nurse appears at the door with the paper. I narrow my eyes glancing between them as she circles toward him. "You can't reinforce this bad behavior. I mean it." She smiles at me as she hands it to him. "I will not tolerate this at home in Los Angeles Alec, I simply won't."

"He knows I'm here at 7:00 with it every morning." She whispers, letting the cat out of the bag as she breezes past me.

His smile doesn't fade, and I lift an eyebrow at him in regard, giving him the most reprimanding look I can muster. It has certainly lost its effect when he smiles at me. "Bah, you don't scare me young lady," and louder he tries to yell out the door, "It was our secret Gertrude, ours!"

"Whatever, you leave Gertrude alone and read your paper." I flop down in the chair turned bed that I have created and watch him unfold it gently.

I stare at his hands. I have always had a thing for hands. I think they tell a lot about a person. He has big powerful hands, bigger than he should on his frame, but that was the part I loved the most; that when I needed strength those hands would find me and hold me up. Even now, they look like they are strong enough to survive anything.

I pray they are.

"Ah." Alec turns the paper and flaps it over the rail of his bed. "And what is this?" I see the droll look on his face and as my eyes slide down to the page, I find more of Olivia Torrington's work.

His thick finger angled at a black and white image of Rachel and I at the Gala. I blink it away as it makes me breathless, "what?"

"Well?"

"What?" I reply again with enough defensiveness that he smiles. "She is just a friend."

Alec purses his lips as he regards the picture in thought. "Very pretty friend."

"Yeah well, I collect very pretty friends, you know this. I collect a lot of really beautiful things." I resign, daring him to challenge further.

And of course, he does. "I think there is more than friend here." He gives me a sideways smile, and I drop my eyes to the image again.

I don't know how Olivia catches the things she does. It's like she writes innuendo into the images. The way the picture was taken perfectly when Rachel is looking up at me, and I'm sliding down; the way it looks like our eyes are narrowing. As if a foot closer and our lips will be meeting in a kiss. I swallow as I remember the way it felt, being so close to Rachel that night. The excitement of Dandelion making my heart hammer in my ears and my hands tremble even while I was talking to her.

I lick my lips as they suddenly dry. I trace the profile of Rachel in the image again, her almond shaped eyes fixed on mine with surety. I eye the curve at the back of her neck where her hair had been pulled up, delicate and licked by strands of hair. She had looked so beautiful. I imagine it again, but suddenly the image in my mind has my lips at that spot on her neck; right at the curve, then at her throat, feeling skin between my lips.

Its jarring and I swallow again because I know it wasn't _just_ Dandelion making my heart race and my hands quiver. It will never happen though, because that bridge is burned for good.

Because I have hurt her too much to ever make it right.

And because I have bigger more important things to do.

"It's nothing." I fold his paper and hand it back over to him, where he sets it in his lap.

"I think she is the reason you aren't married with a baby by now."

"Rachel?" The incredulity in my voice surprises me and right as I say her name in my head, I see the image from the newspaper with crystal clear accuracy.

"No, just a lady in general I suppose, why not this one for the sake of discussion." His gigantic grin is just as infuriating as his observation.

I know that if I stutter or sputter he will know what I was thinking, so I collect myself before I answer. "I think that is a bit of a logic leap, even for you. You have no empirical evidence of anything except my work ethic."

Alec gives me a moment of silent regard before he starts, "there are a few things that age has given me an advantage in. The first being, observation." He taps the side of his nose and winks. "I will tell you a secret, one that will take you years to understand."

"Are you imparting wisdom to me?" I ask dryly and let a weak smile come over my face. He is charming and gentle even as he accosts me to impart secrets I'm not ready or willing to give up.

"Yes, now the thing is that I don't spend _all_ my time busy and because of that, I can observe things." Alec pats the paper for a moment, his eyes distant, thoughtful. "I see your beautiful face and I know that if you would give a man a chance he would never stop pursuing you. If one such man believed he had an opportunity at all, he could never stop. Certainly yours is a face that would have launched a thousand ships, my fair haired little Helen of Troy."

I huff a rather tight breath as the blush cruises up my neck, mostly from his words, but also because his knowing relieves a pain I have held for years. I have mastered the conversations now; letting would be boyfriends know they didn't have a snowballs chance in hell with me. I glance to the window noting silently that I have mastered the ability of telling beautiful women that I'm not calling them back after the night as well. But I had never mastered the speech that would tell Alec who I really am.

It surprises me when his hand catches my cheek and he pats it lightly, dragging my eyes to him.

I don't think he has ever done this before. We have an unspoken rule, a bubble of distance that neither of us crosses. Not because we don't love eachother like a family, but because neither of us are comfortable with the awkwardness of physical comfort. Sure there were the times before where I had broken down, over feelings we never talked about, fears that only a young woman can have about the world. And when I had cried he had held me, but never was it repeated, never talked about – like it was a whisper of a dream that had never happened at all.

However, as his fingers map the side of my face, touching the creases by my eyes from lack of sleep and slide further to brush the mess of blond hair at my temple – it feels different. It feels like he is looking through me, and seeing me for the first time. His grey eyes are warm in their inspection of me, regarding and memorizing, learning and understanding of my plight and the things I never say. It's so tender I close my eyes for the first time in days.

His fingers in my hair are the first I have felt other than my own in years, and for a breathless moment I just want to throw myself in his arms and hide there until everything is okay again. But I can't because I am an adult, and no one should have to protect me anymore.

And I know soon I won't have him anymore.

I sit as still as I can, unwilling to break the trance. Hoping that if I don't move the minutes won't tick past. I breathlessly make a promise to God, to the Devil and anyone between with power over life and death. I promise them I will do anything, give up anything, if they just let me have him a little longer.

I can tell no one is listening to my prayers when my phone rings again, shattering the moment. "What was I saying?" Alec pulls his hand back after one last pat on the cheek. "Get that will you before someone dies from lack of contact with you."

I don't even look at the display; I'm so irritated at the interruption. "Yes."

"Quinn?"

"What _is_ it March!" I growl into the phone, watching as Alec goes back to his paper, laughing a little as he rolls over the print.

"Public opinion in up if you can believe it and the human interest spot that was run a few nights ago actually topped Nielsen Ratings in the time slot." He clears his throat. "How long till you are back in LA? The board wants to meet."

I think about answering for a moment and then the rage wins me over, "Fuck you and them."

I hang up.

Alec is laughing from his place at the bed. "I just read they are calling you the angel in Armani."

"Oh god, really?" I direct in chagrin, shaking my head at him.

"If only they knew the mouth you have sometimes. Angel I think not in those moments."

"Hush, it was warranted, believe me."

Alec tosses the paper down the bed and it falls against his legs limply. I watch the business come over his face. "You cannot just sit here on your laurels. What do you plan to do with Dandelion now?"

I lean against the rail between us, regarding the bland hospital painting on the wall. I guess I could change the release locations, go straight to the poorest, hardest hit areas first. Places like that typically don't care about what the media think. Or, I could wait and ride the wave of positive opinion and exploit it for everything it has.

"I don't know."

"Lies. You always have a plan." Alec waves me off and after a moment of thought he continues, "you should run with this angel feeling."

"Exploit it and then capitalize later?"

"If that is how you have to see it Quinn, then yes." He regards me lightly, a smile forming on his lips. "You should see if your siren will join you in this."

"Yeah maybe," I answer absently as I notice how heavy his breath is. From this close the translucency of his skin and the pallor frightens me. "Do you need me to get something for you; another pillow Alec?"

"No, just promise me something."

I don't like the look in his eyes, so I cut him off at the pass. "Only if you promise me that you will get better."

He sighs at me. "Promise me that you will see it through."

"Dandelion?"

"Everything."

I laugh. "What is 'everything' exactly? That is incredibly vague."

He shrugs lightly and then reaches for his bowtie again, worrying it between his fingers. "The dreams you always wanted to accomplish, the goals you have set for yourself, those things. I always wanted to go back to Germany, eat at the cafe where I worked as a boy."

"And you will, so let's get you presentable for now." I steal away the bowtie, running its silk through my fingers. "So," I debate what to say, "my childhood dreams of being an artist, a writer, a journalist, a singer and a lawyer – do all of those- on top of running Dandelion?"

I pop his shirt collar and he bows forward so I can slip the tie around. "Yes. Or just raise an artist and a writer and the lawyer."

I nod with a smirk as I focus on my task. "So, the family part _you_ have wanted me to have, see _that_ through."

He coughs lightly. "You should, what a child you would make."

"Dear god." I shake my head, my face hot. "You are terrible." I attempt a moment of truth to see how it feels. "How would I manage that if I was in fact not the man-marrying type?"

"I'm sure two smart women could figure it out." He keeps his face perfectly straight, "I mean you imagined up a computer chip, I'm fairly certain you could imagine up some device."

I choke on my half laugh, half gasp, fighting valiantly to not die of sudden embarrassment. He is smiling, reveling in emotions I don't think I have ever worn around him, until I catch his eyes and the seriousness in my face stops him cold.

"I have a daughter." Saying it out loud for the first time about blinds me with pain.

"I know."

"She is fourteen now."

"I know."

"Doesn't she count as family?"

"She is yours, but not. And while she is family, she isn't _your_ family. She has her own parents, and you know very well that I think you should have a proper family."

"You are my family too." My voice is very small, smaller than I think I have ever heard it. I gulp past the lump in my throat.

"I always will be."

I finish the tie and smooth it, tugging a little to get it straight. It's crooked. I don't want to tell him. I see that tiny motion, that inability, like the grandest failure I have ever committed.

Alec must see it in my face, the furrow in my brows at it, because he smiles thinly and pats my hands, freeing the agony and misery I feel. "Go get me my shave kit, it is in the bathroom."

I grin past the crumbling of my lips. "Does this mean we are making a break out of here?"

A nod as he grabs for the newspaper. He points it at me. "Just this and my shave kit, please."

Its funny how the motion, the certainty in his eyes fills my heart with such hope. Even though I know the end is coming, I know it isn't now. I bound up, renewed.

"Did you want to shave now? Want me to get water too?" I ask from the foot of the bed as he looks at me in that way, his eyes cataloguing again. I tilt my head at him as a flash of panic grips my heart. "Alec?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"So one of us always remembers how wonderful you are even when you cannot see it."

Dread builds as I glance at the bathroom door. "You aren't sending me in there so I'm gone," I blow out a breath, "you will be here when I get back, right?"

He laughs, "Who could time such a thing? I will be here for you." Satisfied with the answer I continue on.

"Oh Quinn, I just realized something."

"What's that?" I stop at the bathroom door and tap my nails on the edge of the faux wood paneling.

"You called her beautiful. I did not call her beautiful."

"Stop it." I tease, huffing a breath when I realize he is right. "If you must know, yes I think she is beautiful. Yes I liked her a long time ago, but we are like oil and water. She's good, I'm bad. She's noble, I'm cut-throat."

"Love will always find a way Quinn." Alec winks, wagging a brow at me.

I laugh as I go for the kit on the small sink. "I didn't say I loved her, I just said I liked her a long time ago. Besides, I'm going to be too busy running around all over the globe launching Dandelion to spend time with someone – anyone for that matter."

I grab his razor and slip it into the leather case. I know all I need is my home in LA, my Alec safe and Dandelion launching. I meet my reflection briefly, exhaustion looking back at me. _Just a little more_, I tell myself.

When I hear Alec's newspaper hit the floor, it isn't so much the sound, as the reaction warping my features that paralyzes me with fear.

I can see my eyes go wide, lips parting in a silent gasp of agony. I can see it in my own reflection, the dawning realization that he tricked me. The breath stalls in my chest, freezing my mouth open in a scramble for air that won't come.

He did it on purpose. He knew and he lied because he loved me.

I drop the case on the sink, turning toward the door and the radiant sunlight streaming in. I pray it isn't real, that my fears are simply that, illogical panic over something as silly as him dropping a newspaper. I lie to myself that everything is fine in the few small feet between the bathroom and the bed, but even as I turn the corner and see him laying there – I know he is gone.

For a moment I wonder if he can see me, so I stand firm. I know Alec wouldn't want me to cry, he would want me to rise up and grow from this. I fight the tears I feel building in my chest and just take his hand in mine.

It's warm and I squeeze it, leaning over to get as close as I can as I think of his last words to me.

_Love will always find a way._

I say it over and over so I never forget it. So I know in fifty years from now I will be able to recall it with perfect clarity.

And because love will always find a way, I know I won't die from this. Even though I feel like I might, as I put his hand back against my face, soaking in it one last time before its gone forever.


	10. Terrified: Rachel

**Chapter 10: Terrified: Rachel**

* * *

_**May 17th, 2025**_

_**Manhattan, New York**_

_**Rachel Berry Household**_

I ease out of my heels with a groan. Thank goodness there is only so many press junkets allowed in one sitting. I pull brocade pins from my hair and fan my hand through it, ruffling it out. It relieves the blossoming pain at the back of my skull.

I pick up my heels and carry them with me as I go to the kitchen. It had certainly been awkward trying to actually publicize my latest album, when the only thing people appeared to want to talk about was Olivia's shots of Quinn and I. I drop my shoes by the fridge and open it, allowing the cold air to swirl around my toes. I stare into the whiteness, struggling to remember why I was coming in here.

I didn't have a reason. I close the door, knowing I'm just distracted by my thoughts. It's difficult to focus on anything when I know there are people staring at a picture that caught everything I felt in that moment. Knowing that people know that I care about her makes me worry. It reminds me that nothing is sacred in the public eye and for the one millionth time I curse that dumb bitch Olivia Torrington.

In the bedroom, I pull free of my dress, shedding it beside the bed. I know I should work out, but I'm too tired. I just stare at my drawer filled with gym clothes, willing some part of my brain to come up with a reasonable justification of why I can't go for a run. _What kind of exertion will a short run be anyway_? That had not been the rationale I was hoping for.

That settled my hands go for my sweats and I pull them on. "Just a little cool down after sitting for so long, nothing too hard." I promise myself.

Ernesto, the head of hotel security, catches me in the lobby leaving not twenty minutes since he greeted me. "Are you gonna ever stop, Ms. Berry?"

I wink at him teasingly as I breeze to the door, "Only when I'm dead."

"Should I call a driver? John isn't in tonight, but I can get a really reliable replacement." Quick on the draw, he is already dialing on the phone, when he asks.

I wave him off. "No, really. I'm just gonna run around the block. I shouldn't be more than twenty minutes or so."

He gives me a very dark look. "This is New York; pretty women don't go out at night running alone in that outfit. Let alone famous ones."

I look down at my cut off sweatpants, Nike's and fitted t-shirt. "I really don't think anything is gonna happen on the Upper East Side. Besides, why are you saying that like I'm naked." He pulls the walkie-talkie from his pant loops and I know he is coming with me before he says it.

"I'm coming with you." He flags another man over, "take this and call me on the portable if you need me."

I sigh lightly as his big frame lumbers toward me and he removes his key chain, tossing over to his second in command. "Really, this isn't necessary." I ease, hoping he will change his mind.

"My wife is telling me to lose weight anyway." He holds the door open and the cool night assaults my skin where it is bare. He takes a breath and cracks his neck audibly looking up and down the street. "Which way?"

I shrug, "I don't know, maybe right and we can loop through the buildings about halfway down if we decide to only go half way."

"Okay Ms. Berry."

"Rachel." I offer gently with a smile.

"Okay, Ms. Rachel, let's go."

And with a roll of my eyes we are off.

Ernesto is deceptively light on his feet. We trot along together, and I think we must paint a hilarious sight. Being short always puts me at a disadvantage in conversation, but jogging beside a mountain of a man, easily pushing six and a half feet, I feel silly even saying anything. However, conversation comes easily as we make the turn down East 65th Street.

"Yeah, you know, my wife Daniella and I were talking about traveling to Europe. She likes the idea of the history there, you know?"

I pant out a breath. "Yes, I think there is nothing more amazing than seeing building over a thousand years old." I glance at him, his smile meeting mine. Beyond him on the road, someone screams out my name. I wave on instinct and keep going, not breaking stride or train of thought. "Where were you two thinking of going?"

"I think the Mediterranean, Italy maybe." He coils a little, glancing around to be certain we are safe. "I'm glad I came."

I smile. "They sounded like teenagers, I'm sure they meant no harm."

"I have teenagers," he grins widely, "believe me they can be troublesome when they want to be."

I laugh. The air smells heavy with spring and rain and I stream in deep breathes, soaking it in. "Okay, I have to know, Horchata?"

"Yeah?" he speeds up a little to check the blind alley before I pass it and we crest into the more brightly lit areas outside Michael London's Foods.

"Is it really rice, or is it something else?" We slow to a stop and I let him take a breather and I stretch my thighs.

"Rice and some spices, milk, you know" He gasps a little and stretches his side with a wince. "Normal stuff."

I nod, curious. "What does it taste like?" I bounce on the balls of my feet, feeling the pull in my calves. I shake it out after a moment.

"Cinnamon and rice?" He offers. "I'll have to bring some with me some evening."

I nod, "yeah, I'd like that, just let me know."

We walk together to the corner and he announces with a touch of disdain, "half way."

"I didn't say you had to come," I tease.

Here it is more commercial, and instead of flanking stone and brick buildings, there are dark store fronts. Valentino, La Gouch, Martin Fredricks; long dark panels of windows, reflect us and the sparse foot traffic. They ghost our image as we trot along toward the last leg of our work out. It is a bit eerie because I typically don't go out this late, not without Mark and I'm grateful to have Ernesto's company.

As we make the turn From Madison Avenue toward the home stretch, Ernesto's phone trills. We slow and I stare at him as he answers it breathlessly. "Yeah, this is Ernesto?"

"Jefe? Donde estas?"

It's Spanish, someone asking where he is. I glance away as my 'workout buddy' looks at me. "Fuera, corriendo con la señora Berry. Estamos justo detrás de los condominios. ¿Qué pasa?"

I try to not make it obvious that I'm listening to his conversation, so I walk a little bit forward, silently urging him to follow, and he does. "Tengo una mujer buscando aqui. Ella estaba preguntando por la senora Berry. Ella dice que le conoce." Someone is at the Condo asking for me. A woman.

It peaks my curiosity and I pick up my pace a little. I shoot him a confused look as he answers, looking for more information, asking if anyone has seen her before. "La has visto antes?"

The words that ping through the phone almost wind me. "Si, su mujer de la television, la rubia que posee la empresa de Dandelion." It's the blonde from tv? Dandelion? Quinn?

I can't help that I break into a run before I can stop myself. I'm bounding, down the street and the only measure of my speed is the fade of Ernestos' voice as he calls after me. "Ms. Rachel, wait!"

I slow right as I turn the corner, winding down enough to gather myself. I adjust my ponytail, straighten my shirt and take a deep breath before I hit the lobby. I expect to see her waiting for me, her confident and cool regard. I mentally prepare myself for that level gaze, and a subtle smile. Instead I just see the security guard behind the front desk. I stop mid step, caught off guard by the image of the empty lobby. I'm about to ask where she went, when the security guard points off to my left and I look over to find her sitting in a chair on the other side of the planter from me.

I stare at her back, head bowed and honey hair swirled over her shoulder. It looks like she has raked through it a hundred times. I refrain from the playful comments that pop into my head. Instead I clear my throat. "Quinn?"

She doesn't move, not really. Maybe she lifts her head a little more, but the motion is so slight I can't confirm it happened.

"Hey? What's going on? I thought you went back to Los Angeles."

"No." Her voice is raspy and worn and I instantly know that something is wrong. Years ago, when she found out she was pregnant and she felt like her world was ending, she sounded like this.

"Hey, come with me."

When she turns, I work to not look visibly shocked at the dark rings under her eyes and the pale draw of her already sharp features. She glances away, her eyes evading mine with precision. I don't reach out to her because I can feel her energy, her desire to escape. Her gaze goes to the door and I stop her thoughts with a soft incline of my head toward the elevators. "Hey," she thins her lips in a line as her eyes catch on mine, "come with me."

When Ernesto comes through the door, breathless, I just give him a raised hand, and he lets us go without the normal sign in procedure. I mouth a thank you over my shoulder. We walk slowly, and I see her hands working through her thick blonde mane, swirling the strands between fingers. She doesn't meet my gaze as we get into the elevator, or acknowledge anything until I hit the penthouse floor button. Then her eyes flick to the floor display and she stares at the neon 'Lobby' mutedly.

Once the elevator doors shut, my heart starts to pound. I'm pretty sure she can hear it between the ding of the floors as we head to the top. I still don't know if I can do this. If I can just let go of everything. It's been forever, I tell myself and I close my eyes, willing for myself to let it go. I remember back to the images of her on the television, the things she has done.

I have grown so much, why can't she have as well?

I sigh lightly, focusing on the positive feelings I felt earlier. It puts me at ease. She hasn't said a word yet about what's happening and I don't know what to think. I certainly don't know what to say. It feels like I'm in a dream of some kind, like I'm watching everything happen and not actually living it.

The top floor dings and the doors open soundlessly. I hold the button, not daring to actually look at her until she is moving forward. "To the left." I whisper, worried she will just turn right around and leave. Her scent falls over me and instead of smelling like Armani, she smells like hospital soap. I furrow my brows at her as she crosses her arms before her, and I see her back cave a little more as I follow her to my door.

I key the door and push it open, "well this is it." I joke to try and lighten the mood, and all I get is the pursing of those perfect lips and a narrowing of her eyes as she slides inside.

It's dark and I pop on a light almost immediately, summoning warm red shaded lamps to color the rich browns and tans of my living room. I firm the door closed behind me and I just watch her for a moment, unable to grab at a single thought. After a moment she turns to me, her arms tightening around herself. "Can I use your bathroom?"

I blink, unsure if what I heard is correct. "Um, yes of course." I point to the doorway to the left and I study her careful motions as she closes the door tightly behind her.

I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming this and just to check I bump my head backward against the front door. It hurts. Okay, not a dream. I reach out with a shaky hand and grab my phone. It rings the downstairs desk instantly.

"Ernesto."

"Hey, Its Rachel."

"Ms. Rachel. Everything okay?"

"Yes." I glance at the bathroom door and stare at the light pooling from beneath it into the hallway. "Yeah, I'm sorry, she is an old friend and I forgot I was expecting her." No need to sensationalize the surprise of having her show up.

"Oh, can I put her down as a guest then so that the records are accurate when my morning guys come in a few hours?"

"Of course," I run a hand over my face and then through my hair. "Her name is Quinn Fabray." I listen as he types in her name and I roll the sound of it around in my head.

"Car here?"

"No, cab." I guess.

"Should I call the kitchen and get them to send something up?" He clears his throat. "If I may say, I think she needs something warm."

I nod until I realize he can't see me. "Yes, have someone send something up, just a variety of things." What does she eat? I try to remember back, but I can't picture her eating anything. "Yeah, just anything I suppose. Thanks Ernesto."

"Not a problem Ms. Rachel. Goodnight."

"Night."

I hang the phone gently and stare at it in its cradle.

"Who were you talking to," Quinn whispers from somewhere behind me. I hear the defensiveness and exhaustion in her voice and I take my time before I turn to her.

"I was letting security know you were here, and I am having them bring up some food."

"I'm not hungry."

"I know, but still," I push away from the door and test to see if her gaze follows me. It does. "You should maybe try and eat something, if not that is okay too."

She goes back to combing through her hair, her eyes falling to the floor.

"Want something to drink?" I move slowly toward the kitchen and a part of me feels like I'm in a movie about taming wild animals. I drop down a step into the sunken kitchen, and as I go for the cupboard, I listen for her footfalls. After a moment, I hear her shoes on the tile and I smile a little to myself. "I have some water, soda, almond milk, wine, I could make coffee too."

"Anything is fine."

"No choice on it?"

She is looking around hesitantly and though I'm sure she is unimpressed by my things, I don't feel her passing judgment like I would have expected. "Coffee sounds good."

"Okay."

It takes ten minutes to brew a full pot, so I use that as a timekeeper between us. We take up places on separate sides of the L shaped sofa, half facing one another as the silence stretches out between us. I half look at her as I regard the top of my coffee table. She is wearing the same jacket and shirt I saw her in at the hospital and that coupled with the medicinal smell about her tells me she hasn't been to her hotel in two days.

I don't dare ask and deep inside I'm afraid to know the eventual answer. I clear my throat lightly, scared to make a sound, afraid if I do something will happen; something terrible. The twist of my stomach is almost unbearable as the coffee pot puffs in the kitchen.

"Rachel?"

I glance at Quinn's face and she doesn't meet my gaze. "Yes?"

"Thank you for letting me in."

It strikes a strange and painful chord within me. "Of course, why wouldn't I?"

She grimaces a little, pulling up the same memories I do. They seem to hurt her more than me. "I know how things were; you don't have to be nice to me."

"It's been years Quinn, like fifteen." I let go of the rest of my misgivings, and settle back against the sofa cushions. She needs my help and past trespasses shouldn't matter anymore. I'm not that person, and I'll never be petty enough to hold onto something like that for so long; not in the face of her rampaging hurt. "It has almost been a lifetime since all that happened. We are two totally different people now, right?"

She flashes a sorrowful smile that vanishes instantly. "I wish I could say so."

"You can." I prop my head on a hand and turn to regard her, leaning on the back of the sofa. "You know you have come a long way from the teenager you once were." I regard the way her eyes flit away again, never resting on anything for more than a moment. "Quinn?"

She doesn't acknowledge me as she drowns in whatever thoughts are torturing her.

"Quinn."

She snaps to focus on me.

"What is this about?" I urge her gently. "I know you didn't come here to get an ego boost over if you have changed or not. I know that you know you have accomplished a lot, that you are a different person, that you are successful." I smile lightly, hoping it takes any possible bite out of my words. "You literally have a globe of people who are touting you as the technological equivalent of Gandhi. You don't need to hear me say you are a success."

"What if I do?"

The words catch me completely off guard. I try not to let me face screw up in surprise, because I'm pretty sure she just asked for my approval. I open my mouth but nothing comes out. It takes a minute for the blood to direct from my face to my brain so I can answer. "I think you are a success."

I see her swallow, processing my words. When she looks at me, her look is the same as I saw at the press conference; the same look that had literally stopped my heart for a moment. It has even more effect when it is levied just for me between the two of us. I fix on the amber of her eyes, tracing the thick fan of her eyelashes as they gather mist from her eyes. "Alec died today."

I don't know who it is, but I firm my lips and then frown. "I'm so sorry Quinn."

I'm not going to belittle the pain she feels by asking for the back story. She deserves better than that.

"You know what hurts the most?"

I shake my head, because I'm pretty sure I can't voice a single word as I watch tears light her eyes.

"I have created so many things with my hands. I drew and designed something that would give life to people. I even built it, but my God-" her voice breaks, "I can't save the people I love."

"There is nothing you could have done." I don't know the circumstances, but I hazard that she didn't murder anyone. I edge closer, her eyes warily regarding me. I pause before I drop down to the floor and stop beside her knees. I repeat my words again, softly. "There is nothing you could have done."

"You don't know that Rachel." She holds her hands out, palm up, showing them to me. "I should have done something. My hands are strong enough to carry so much, why didn't he tell me he was sick? Why didn't I notice sooner and stop him? I could have conducted the tests; I could have forced him to take leave, to seek better treatment for his cancer."

Cancer. I stagger a breath trying to reset the anguish I feel as I watch her self-destruct.

"It's my fault he is gone. I loved him, he was like my father. I loved him and I failed him. I killed him."

"No!" I surprise myself with my outburst, making both of us flinch. "No, don't you say that! Cancer is not your fault, and there is nothing you can do to stop it." I don't even realize I'm squeezing her fingers, rattling them in my grip as we stare at one another.

Her gaze drops to her hands in mine and I loosen my hold. "Don't touch them, they are bad hands."

It's so sad, the haunted look that passes over her face, the nightmares that paint inside her mind. I can see it, the thoughts and the agony. I didn't know she could be this expressive. I had no idea at all – about anything.

About how much her words of self-loathing hurt me.

About how real and beautiful and rare she is.

About how easily I could love her again.

All of those revelations embolden me enough for me to reach up and grab the sides of her face, pinning her eyes with mine, boring into them with as much conviction as I can materialize. "They are good hands. Beautiful hands, lead by a beautiful heart." I hold her face, so close I can see the golden swatches that blend the amber and green together. I can taste her breath, her misery mixing with mine. I remember the way I have felt the past few days, the slow burning fire of belief in her that has grown. How the deeper I go the better it gets, the better she is. I hear the echoes of Wright's newscast in my mind.

_It's time for you to decide, what's right for you._

"I care too much about you to let you do this. Don't ever doubt the goodness of who you are and the hero that I believe you to be. You are the closest thing to an angel on this earth and I'll be damned before I let you vilify yourself."

The words come so easily, it's almost like I have believed them my whole life. They literally tear out of my heart with the force of a flood gate breaking.

I'm frozen, watching as my words fall onto her and the realization of them shakes the core of her enough to bring the tears in her lashes down her cheeks. I follow them with my eyes before I thread my thumbs through the trails, watching as she closes her eyes to the motion. Her forehead finds mine, golden hair weaving through my fingers as I hold her there.

"You are a good woman. You are doing good things. Don't ever lose your faith or your way." I whisper calmly, brushing my nose against hers as I do everything in my power to keep her here in this moment with me. Until I know she has heard me and believes me.

In the kitchen the coffee pot announces it's finished with a sharp beep. I can't believe it's been ten minutes. It feels like hours have passed. I lower my hands from her cheeks, tracing down her shoulders as our foreheads bump against each other's lightly. "Coffee is ready Quinn."

She doesn't move, except to tighten her hands around my arms. "Yeah."

I go to move, but she stops me with a hand around my wrist. "I don't want to be alone."

I nod, taking her hand.

She follows me in the dark. Her breath the only thing I hear louder than the thunder in my veins. I memorize the sound of it as I mix the cups, carrying them with me. Quinn's statuesque presence so close it burns my back.

I'm grateful she eats when they bring food. The variety is wide enough that I discover that she likes mozzarella sticks and celery soup, but not at the same time. She tells me about Alec through tears she valiantly fights, about how he gave her center and a purpose. How he loved her. I cry with her, late into the pre-dawn hours.

I realize only she has the power to make me cry this hard for this long. I wonder what it means. I marvel at the fact that I don't think it's bad. Not now, not from this version of the woman I am getting to know. Quinn's silence becomes something I fear less and appreciate more. In a few hours I learn to read so much in the emotion that passes through her features, things words fail at expressing so miserably they are worthless.

She lets me see sentiment so powerful that I believe they are things she never let anyone see.

Laying here on the sofa, I'm staring at her, reading the tilt in her head and the curve of her lips, half asleep beside her when I mumble, "bed time?"

She nods slowly and stretches a little; her legs mingle with mine comfortably. I shift, eyeing my bedroom door with disdain. A pained expression of realization wakes her as I drag myself to my feet. I feel her panic as she becomes aware of the loneliness she will have to face in the dark out here.

I hesitate a moment, wondering what it would mean if I brought her with me. I cave under the pressure I feel from my own heart and selfishly hold my hand out for her. I bring her with me to my bedroom and she follows silently, until I pull free clothing for her to wear.

"You don't have to do that."

"No. I don't." I trail hands over her, pulling her closer, peeling her out of clothing she has worn for too long. I bare her to my eyes. Physically manifesting the stripping away of every last defense she uses to displace her emotions. I replace it with clean cotton, my own de facto armor, rubbing her arms to make heat as she shivers. Her tears start again as she regards my motions and the implications of what has passed between us. "Shhh, it's going to be okay."

I pull her with me under the blankets, wiping at the silent droplets that cut to the pillows as I spoon her side. "I'm all alone Rachel. I have nothing left."

I barely catch the words and they hurt. "No. You aren't alone, you have me."

It's meant to comfort her, but she rolls toward me, pulling back to catch the faintest whisper of light in the weaving of her hair. I caress through it, our eyes measuring back and forth as I read the agony in her expression, the shadows burning in the dark of her gaze, and the fact she is falling with nothing to catch her.

"No, I don't."

I feel her spiral down as the gravity of the words settle. Her breathing goes ragged and I pull her tight to me, cupping the back of her head as her sobs ply against my neck. I pray if I hold her long enough it will help soothe her.

"I won't let you fall." I whisper in reassurance, swept up in the moment between us. "I will be here for you."

I realize how carelessly I utter those words when they break open her caged demons; leaving nothing in heaven or on earth for me to stop her from burying her face in my chest and screaming her pain into my arms as she cries through the rest of the night.

And when she tells me in broken sobs just before dawn that she feels like something inside her is dying, it terrifies me.

Not only because I believe her, but because I can feel it like she's my own.


	11. Broken Down: Quinn

**Chapter 11: Broken Down: Quinn**

* * *

_**May 18th, 2025**_

_**Manhattan, New York**_

_**Rachel Berry Household**_

It's always darkest before the dawn. I think that thought over and over as I listen to the roaring silence around me. After crying for so long, I have almost forgotten what peace sounds like, such was the immensity of my misery. If not for Rachel's low breathing, I would have believed I had gone deaf as I lay here quietly. Her soft steady measure, the rise and fall of her, keeps time with my heart beats. It both baffles and confuses me why her biology seems to echo with mine.

"Rachel?" I can't believe the scratch in the voice I hear is my own. I sound like someone has shredded my vocal chords. Here in Rachel's arms I have purged parts of my soul I haven't ever paid attention to. Things that I shouldn't have said, _have _been said with such abandon it rattles me to the very fiber of my being.

"Yes?" Her hand weaves a delicate trail over my shoulders, inching up to touch the back of my neck delicately. She has pathed her hands over that spot so many times my hair is twisted up and away now and with every pass it runs between her fingers lazily.

"Are you asleep?"

She laughs softly, her hand coming to a rest on my arm, brushing up under the edge of the shirt sleeve. "Yes, I'm asleep." I fix my eyes on her hand, the long lines of her fingers and the softness of her touch. Though I know I should laugh, it would be the appropriate response, I just want to cry.

I don't know why. I don't understand why something as silly as that motion and those words; something so lighthearted and benign, can make me hurt so much.

"Okay."

I just accept it, and move on.

It's what I do every day of my life.

Accept; move on. It is the only thing I have left, in truth – to move on, putting one foot in front of the other.

And that dark truth is such a horrible thing. To be alone and know that it is just one more burden I have to carry. I feel my chest seize up as I sniffle, pulling back to look up at Rachel. She smiles in a friendly way, an easy smile. It isn't the Rachel Berry brilliant cut of teeth that has won a world of adoration. No, it's a secret smile, one that perks more at one corner then the other. It is a real smile, full of understanding and something else that pulls at the frayed edges of my heart.

That smile, so warm with emotion it might as well be a knife to my marionette strings that drops me to the floor in a heap of nothingness. It kills me with its unassuming and non-demanding kindness. It drives a cold spike of dread into the pit of my stomach because she knows.

She knows _me_. She knows my fears and my doubts and my pain. She knows the direction to press and with what intensity to shatter me.

Rachel _knows_ that she knows too and that is the most dangerous part.

I measure the softness in her gaze, the long lashes and deep swirls of mahogany in her brown eyes. I wonder how safe it is for her to know such things. How can I trust her with secrets so vital to my existence, when there is always a price to be paid? Where anyone and everyone can be bought and sold like property. Alliances are made and broken in the blink of an eye and the signature of a check, so why not her? I have learned along the way that nothing is sacred, and nothing that matters to me – matters at all to anyone.

I wonder what Rachel's selling price is. How much would someone have to pay to get the woman that has held me for the last few hours to spill to them my misery; a few million perhaps? It is a small price to pay in actuality if it drummed up enough publicity. If it was for a strategic purpose, maybe more would be offered.

"Tell me something."

I blink, not sure why I prompted that request.

"Like what?" Her fingers start again, this time trailing comfortingly over my arm down to my wrist and back again.

"I have told you things, secret things. Tell me something so you have something invested."

She scoffs, and I catch the roll of her eyes in the darkness, "you think a compromising secret will make me more invested?"

"Yes."

"Fine," Rachel pauses her motions as her attention drifts toward her thoughts. I trace her face and the bowing curve of her lips as she licks them lightly. She's nervous. "Well, I don't want you to be uncomfortable, so I apologize in advance if this makes it such."

As if I can get any more uncomfortable with the prospect of her power over me.

"Okay."

She sighs, "I was engaged to this woman once. Danni- Danielle was her name. She and I had a falling out I suppose and she threatened to go to the press about our relationship."

It surprises me a little, but not enough to say it catches me completely off guard. I nod, letting her continue. "So, yeah I had to pay her a lot to keep her from doing it, and get her to sign a non-disclosure. You would be amazed at how much it takes now to get someone to put their name to paper saying they will keep their mouth shut."

"Try me." I whisper, curious about the figure.

"About five million," she shrugs, "probably not much to you, but a lot to me."

I narrow my eyes to see if she is joking, when I realize she isn't I sigh. "That is a lot, even for me."

"How much are you and your company worth?"

I eye her, wondering why she is asking. "Not as much as you appear to think."

She swallows awkwardly realizing what she said and that it crossed a line, "yeah, that was rude of me to ask, I apologize."

It was, but I redirect her, "so, what was the big secret about you being with a woman, I mean it certainly isn't the stigma it once was."

Rachel chews her lip in the dark and I can make out just the faintest movement as they slide against one another, "it is when more than half of the people that buy your music do it with the sole desire to get into your pants."

"How is that the case?" I arch an eyebrow at her cause I think that is one of the dumbest things I've heard. Someone in her marketing team is full of shit and I go to tell her such, but I fall silent on my words as she continues.

"I got a call from the publicity guys, after the Danni thing, and they basically told me to keep it out of the media or I'd lose my contract."

"So?"

She laughs mournfully. "I'm leveraged. My buy out option is more than I have even if I put my condo up as equity and loan against it." She shrugs, "they own me and therefore I do what they say."

"Your agent sucks."

Is that all I really have the heart to say? I know she deserves so much more, _needs _so much more. I can't say it though. And as much as I want to ignore the irritation I feel about her situation, I can't stop the anger that bubbles up. It is so strange to hear that someone who touted such confidence and security in her beliefs is now a slave to someone else's.

"So now you know my secret and I trust you to not ruin me."

I glance up into her eyes. "Okay."

"Do you trust me?"

"With?"

"Protecting your heart?"

She is always pushing for more, and I frown. That is the Rachel I know, the young woman she used to be suddenly alive in my mind. She can't let something go unspoken, it has to be announced, pledged, dictated and recorded on gold leaf. And the way she says it, the confidence of her words and tone tells me she thinks she already has the answer. So I don't give her the response she wants. I can't let her take the power back from me. I shift closer, stretching out to meet her face to face, the motion knocking her off-balance.

From this close, her eyes are wide as they bounce back and forth over mine; her hand on my arm is holding me. "Rachel?"

"Yeah?" It's breathless.

"I don't trust anyone."

"I know, but you trust me."

"No I don't."

She smirks, "You do or you wouldn't be here."

I scowl at her until I can dismiss her, "you sound pretty sure of yourself. Shows what you know."

"Yep."

Her smile doesn't falter, instead it broadens as her eyes drop to my lips. I lick them under her gaze, watching the pull of her eyebrows at the motion. When she returns to my eyes, she is so confident that it catches me. It startles me when I realize I want to kiss her and stall that knowing smile. "Hey Quinn?"

"What?" I growl at her, making her shiver beside me.

"If you don't trust me then do something to change my mind and prove me wrong."

It starts as an assertion of power, the drag of my nails over her scalp, the twining of her dark hair in my hand, but the power of the motion dies before my lips touch hers. And as they meet, the sheer wave of the universe crashing over me threatens to break me like a matchstick.

She tastes like summer days feel. Sun and rain and fire building and breaking within me. Her hands are claiming and taming me as they map my back. She is a rain storm over the desert of my life and for a moment I forget that I'm Quinn Fabray the stone cold bitch of the boardroom and I soak in her.

Rachel fills up my heart enough to awaken the woman inside the shell. The dead Quinn, the one that yearned for understanding and compassion; that lived and breathed and believed that there is nothing that loving hands couldn't fix. Her words crash over me like an ocean and drag me down, making me say and do things without volition.

Then I remember I don't have the luxury to feel these things; these twinkles of firelight in my heart as she crests over me and makes moans that sound like I'm tearing her apart. It becomes a delicate balance as she takes me to the edge in turn and dares me to not die right here in her arms. Every sound I make, she whispers is an affirmation of my feelings to her, even when I silently tell myself that this is nothing more than a carnal impulse. It is the dance of the survivor I remind myself as she thunders over and inside me. The throbbing, pounding, dark and light of life that should tell her nothing more than the fact I'm glad I'm alive.

As the first cut of sunlight hits us, I watch it bathe her naked form and I'm broken by the image of it. I spend an hour of new daylight just tracing her lips with mine, languidly exploring how it makes my heart feel as we connect and share breath. I memorize it because I know I will never have the chance to do it again. Rachel is the first asleep, her body curled to mine, head pillowed on my shoulder. I kiss her temple with a sad smile and splay my fingers between hers. "How did you become so beautiful?"

I whisper my homage to her as final act of humanity before I'm eaten by the person I always will be.

And sleep overtakes me.

* * *

_So this is what it feels like to be safe._

It is the first thought on my mind as I feel myself waking up.

I shift in bed, partially aware of the smells around me, the mouth wateringly gentle smell of – something, tickling the edges of my mind. I sigh into it and revel in it as I roll over and squeeze my pillow. I can see the sunlight behind my closed eyes, but I tell myself I'll just be a few minutes more.

It's early; it has to be, so why not enjoy the warmth dragging me down to the bed. I blink a peek at the window. Instead of my own slat steel blinds, I'm greeted by dark wood framing a window façade before the sun blinds me. It looks like sunset.

I blink as I focus at it. The lines the rays cut as they pour over me makes me feel delirious. It does something in my heart. I have always been sensitive to light, the color and the shadow in it. I swallow as I fix on the blinds again.

They aren't mine.

That's when I realize I'm not at home.

My eyes fix on an antique cushioned chair where clothing has piled. They're cotton, two shirts dropped to pool around one another - I feel my whole body go numb as my eyes drift to the comforter over me and the nakedness I feel beneath it. I pause as at the same instant I feel warm breath spread over the back of my neck and all at once my mind catches up with everything. I can feel Rachel's body against mine, breath, and heat. God it's so hot, hotter than I have ever felt before.

I slowly roll over, my eyes fixing on the ceiling fan as it circles lazily, languidly cutting circles above me. For a split second I think I'm dreaming, but then I see the outline of tussled curls and I have my confirmation. Rachel. I think I hear my heart pound once, hard – and then stop. I tighten my hand on the comforter.

Oh, my, god. What have I done?

I can't grab a single thought as I see and hear and feel everything again from the night before; her voice, her eyes, her arms. I mentally trace the space I had cried into all night, the niche in her arms. I remember it, the bare skin of her chest above the cut of her tank top. How it felt to press my face there are just cry. How I hadn't cried like that in fifteen years.

And then that one moment when I had tipped my chin to her. The puzzle I saw in her knowing smile and words. For a moment the only thing I had wanted was to tear that look off her face. So I had, with a kiss.

And that one motion had broken something between us when it turned into a sexual power play. I can hear her words of adoration in my ears, burning through the synapses of my brain like lightning. That she cares about me, that she wants to protect me, my heart.

And true to form I had done what I always do when something is beyond me. I destroy it. I touched her so her words would stop hurting me. I had peeled her out of that skin tight tank and kept her mouth busy so it couldn't placate my heart with promises she couldn't keep; promises _I_ couldn't let her keep.

My chest tightens as I remember it. The stagger in my hiccupping breath is enough to wake her and I bite back the swear word that about bursts from my mouth.

"Quinn?" Her eyes are still closed and she says my name like I'm still touching her, still inside her; the breathless warmth and utter intensity of it freezes me cold.

She smiles at me from her place on the bed, hair mused around her shoulders. Her eyes are glazed when they open; sleepy and red from sharing so much with me. I regard the warmth in her gaze as she blinks those long lashes, no - she wasn't just sharing, she was carrying me. Carrying my weakness like it was nothing and placing balming warmth on my tatters.

She sighs lightly after her eyes travel over me, memorizing me in her bed by the look of it. It feels bizarrely intimate and I tighten the comforter around me. She turns from me and fishes for something on the nightstand behind her. My eyes drift to the stretch of her body between the blankets, the long lithe lines of her dancer's frame and the paths I had burned my skin against.

"It's late." I glance to the doorknob nervously as out of my periphery she squints at the face of her silver wristwatch.

She sets it down with a confused expression and then rubs her eyes sleepily. "Oh jeez, I can't believe we slept for so long." She ruffles out her hair, making my head a little light with the scent of her. "I normally don't do this, you know?"

I don't know what it is she doesn't do often; one night stands or sleep late. "Yeah." I dismiss her with my answer as she rolls to face me. Her eyes catch and hold mine.

"Are you okay Quinn?" Her brows furrow in concern. "I mean, for real between friends, are you okay?"

Friends?

It's a dirty word in my world. It means you have a weak spot. It's akin to the niche in a suit of armor; a perforation in the perfection. Having friends in your life means you can be exploited, be coerced and damn it, it means you have something important to compromise yourself for.

To me, now; right now, it is a really dirty word. I've never been on the receiving end of this talk. It offends me, hurts me; makes me feel vulnerable and I'm done letting people have that. With Alec gone, the thought tightens my throat, I have no weakness anymore.

Except last night.

"Quinn?"

I snap back to focus on her face. "I'm sorry, Rachel I just," the panic seizes me, "I have to go."

I think about last night, and how I tipped a scale that shouldn't have been tipped as I throw the blankets off. She wants to be my friend, wants a connection I can't offer her. I grab my clothes and slip into my underwear.

I don't regret much, but I regret this. I regret the decision to go to her as much as I regret breaking down. I should never have let it happen because I know better than that.

"Quinn? Wait."

I try to put that distance back, to protect her because I know I can't give her what she needs. "I'm sorry, just... please, let me go." I pull on my jeans as I glance at the door and focus on the knob, willing my hand to get on it. I have to escape and the automatic words that come out of my mouth are ridiculously ill placed. "Thanks for letting me stay over the night."

"Whoa, wait a second." The sudden emotion in her voice is palpable and I turn away as she stands. I don't give a damn about anything though, I can't. It doesn't matter how hurt she looks, or how beautiful she is. "Quinn, wait a second and let's talk about this like adults."

I want to tell her I have to go or I'm just going to hurt her. That I can't be with anyone, because I will break them; that I destroy everything I touch. Why can't she see that? All I can muster is a quiet, "It was a mistake."

I think she makes a sound, but I'm not sure as my blood pressure skyrockets and my ears ring. I shouldn't have said it, I know. I can't even believe I did. I stare at the floor as I grab my shirt and run my fingers over it. It was less than twenty four hours ago that she was dressing me so carefully, pulling this off and stripping me of my sins.

I shrug my shirt on when I hear the chime of the clock drift into the bedroom. It pings seven times, every time more loudly until I hear Rachel move and circle around to me. I curse God and everything else in my life as I grab my bra and twine it in my hands.

"Quinn?"

I sigh as she takes my wrists, baring my escape with her amazingly exquisite image. I glance up and away, staring at the ceiling with resolve.

"Fine, you don't have to answer me." She tightens her grip on me and then strokes the skin under her fingers. "I understand you're afraid. I understand you're confused. Even understand that you might regret last night, with me."

I swallow, willing myself not to hear her words. I have so much I have to do. So many important things. It doesn't include this. I remind myself who she is; someone who can touch me, who I can touch, who can't be more than that. She is a strategic stopping point on my road to victory. Expendable, like everything else in my way.

"Let me go." I find my voice and as I lower my eyes to hers, I'm once again in control of myself. Rachel doesn't budge though and her chocolate eyes regard me narrowly. I know what she is thinking, "Yes, I just told you to let me go, and yes, it was in _that_ tone of voice. So do it."

And she does. As she leans and grabs the robe beside her bed, I move around her toward the bedroom door.

I look back at her as I pull it open. She is wrapped in the robe now, arms folded, staring at me with a mix of what looks like shock and confusion. I clear my throat. "Take care of yourself."

"You too." To her credit she doesn't even flinch when she says it, even though I know it hurts her. This is Rachel Berry after all, hopeless romantic and dreamer of so many things. I know the pain is better like this, better than the pain I would give her down the road when she discovered that I can't be different then I am right now.

I go to leave, but she clears her throat lightly and for some reason it halts my motions.

"Quinn."

"Yeah Rachel?"

I pin her one last time and this time her lips do crumble a little, quivering ever so slightly under the weight of whatever she wants to say. She goes to speak and then stops, clearing her throat and plastering a soothed expression on. "Just remember that I trust you, so please, make my faith in you not completely misplaced."

Her words inexplicably flair my anger, "and if you open your mouth about me, I swear your faith will be last thing you think about."

Rachel wipes at the corner of her eye as her shoulders cave a little. I feel something spread through me and it takes a moment to recognize it as mourning.

"Is that what this was then, a maneuvering for leverage?"

I cock my head at her, studying her and the emotion I can't feel or understand. The silencing cold in my veins is a blessing for me to do what I must. "What else would it have been?"

I close the door on her, leaving her to her tears.

Its a sorrow I can't understand since I just did her the biggest favor of her life.


End file.
